Sir, – Bill Oldfield (D&S Eating In, September 25) says he loves spider crabs yet three paragraphs later he advocates killing them and states that his preferred method is to drown them.
He acknowledges that crabs are fish and subsequently mentions their gills, but he appears not to know that fish can breathe in water and it is the gills that enable them to do so.
Thus, unlike air-breathing animals, fish are “drowned” by being taken out of water, not by being put into it.
The author’s ignorance of basic biology aside, I fail to see how he reconciles his love for these creatures with the desire to kill them, and if the crabs had to die it is unlikely that being boiled alive, slowly, would be their preferred method.
Perhaps love was a misprint for hate.
PATRICIA TRICKER Arrathorne, Bedale.
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