I’d like to offer some thoughts on the practice of baiting and trapping animals for sport or commerce.

Consider how hobbyists or businessmen will go into an animal’s natural habitat and, using baited traps, lure innocent, nonthreatening creatures either to their deaths or to a torturous end after being corralled and kept alive.

For lobsters, consider the intense fear and the agonizing pain that must explode in their brains the moment they’re dropped into that pot of boiling water. Surely there must be a more humane way to trap and kill these crusty little critters than the barbaric methods currently employed – baiting and boiling.

Worse yet are the beastly hordes of humans who feast and profit on this inhumane practice. And the numbers! My goodness, compared to the relatively small amount of bear or moose shot, this lobster slaughter is a veritable crustacean holocaust – and all to feed man’s voracious appetites for food, sport and profit.

Enough, I say. Let the referendum begin!

Robert L. Petrillo

Westbrook