I worked in seafood for a few years at Whole Foods and I used to tell squeamish lobster customers that lobsters deserve to die. "They are the jerks of the sea," I would say. Seriously, though -- screw their intelligence and acute nerve sensitivity, lobsters are, in fact, cannibals. They eat their own; if they end up on some human's plate, it's fair play. Screw them.
From a PR standpoint, the esteemed WF stopped carrying lobsters because they were concerned with the handling conditions that lobster fishermen and distributors were using, but the decision had more to do with the bottom line than the bottom of their collective heart: increasing market prices for those crafty, prolific sea insects who have learned to outwit human trapping methods and get increasingly hard to catch (they are NOT endangered) made these things a losing product because there is a 50% margin (give or take) required for every product Whole Foods sells. Nobody wants to pay $25/lb or upwards for lobster when they can get it much cheaper elsewhere, and no WF seafood managers want to lose their livelihood, benefits, etc. by sinking their department over a bunch of overpriced bugs.
This attitude of mine has got to have something to do with why I never was able to move into upper management.
