While reading about another PETA victory on Treehugger.com, I was amazed to learn about yet another form of cruel live animal-eating known as “dancing shrimp.” To make live shrimp “dance” on each patron’s plate, they are cut and drizzled with lemon juice to painfully make them twitch and jump. How can patrons delight in such a practice? That’s akin to those stories about Snow White’s stepmother being forced to dance in red hot iron shoes that were heated over coals before her wedding.

It isn’t dancing, it’s torture—and for people who don’t think that fish and other aquatic animals can feel pain—a very mistaken belief; they are animals, after all—studies have been conducted to prove otherwise. In fact, when provided with pain medicine, fish have been shown to respond in kind, as humans would. The animals have nerves just as humans do; so why on Earth would people dismiss fish as not being able to feel pain?

The reason, of course, is convenience. We don’t like to think we harm animals on our quest for eating them, or that they feel pain—so we simply deny it. People who catch fish and claim they feel no pain are full of it; would you seriously believe that having a hook in your jaw doesn’t hurt? That’s just one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard, period. If you’re going to go fishing and eat fish, at least own up to it. Yes, I catch fish by impaling them with a hook, and then I cook them.

It’s like a friend of mine—who is a pescetarian—says: humans aren’t meant to just eat everything on the planet. Every species has its diet, and we just go around believing we can eat tiger meat or monkey brains. It’s not natural. She argues that eating fish is natural, and that humans were meant to do so.

While I disagree, I think her argument is sound—why do we have to chase every creature on the planet to eat “exotic” foods when we can grow our own in our backyards? And furthermore, why do we have to inflict even more pain by eating animals that are alive—and torture them by making them “dance” or boiling them while they’re still breathing or eating their brains while they scream?

Good for you, PETA, in getting this restaurant to stop this cruel practice. If only it could be stopped worldwide.