Let me start by stating very clearly that I am an omnivore. When it comes to food, I'll try just about anything. Or anyone, if you're one of those folks who thinks all living creatures are endowed with the basic right to live unmolested.

This week the advocacy group, People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, released a video that the organization claims shows how lobsters and crabs are processed for meat at a facility in Rockland. You can watch for yourself at this link.

Since the video was released, there has been a lot of debate about the issue. People are asking if video was really made at Linda Bean's factory and whether Maine statute states, as PETA asserts, that a person “is guilty of cruelty to animals if that person intentionally … mutilates an animal” or “intentionally … kills… an animal by a method that does not cause instantaneous death.”

Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher was quoted in the press as saying, “What is shown in [the PETA] video is compliant with state and federal laws and regulations, including Maine's animal-welfare statute.”

Bean's attorney told the Portland Press Herald: “Our practices do not violate Maine's laws on cruelty to animals because lobsters do not come within the covered definition. Simply put, lobsters are not 'sentient creatures,' a position supported by long-standing and oft-repeated scientific and governmental studies.”

The Maine Lobstermen's Association chimed in calling the organization “extremists” and saying “They should not be taken seriously.”

The website at dictionary.com defines sentient as “having the power of sense perception or sensation; conscious.”

As one sentient being to another, I have to say the the idea that we humans are the only creatures on earth who perceive and feel is absurd. Ask any dog owner whether that pet can sense what is going on and even respond from a consciousness different from its human companions, and you'll see the weakness in that claim.

Does that mean we should not eat other animals? That's a personal decision with a lot of different factors at play. For most people in this country, it is considered unacceptable to eat dogs, but OK to eat baby cows.

My ethical system requires me to honestly evaluate my choices, based on information and belief, in order to live in a way that leaves me feeling that I am not taking more from the created world than I can give back.

This process is reflected in my attitude toward mosquitoes and black flies. While I don't enjoy being bitten any more than the next guy, I recognize that I eat a lot. A lot of green veggies, fruits, grains, roots and meat. It seems only fair that something should get to dine on me. That doesn't mean I don't reflexively swat a buzzing insect when it comes my way, but it does mean I stop myself more often than not.

Flaky? Maybe. And somewhat beside the deeper point.

The earth is a whole system of interacting parts. Maine lobstermen  and DMR recognize this, in so far as they view lobsters and other sea creatures as resources. They understand that indiscriminate harvest and poisonous runoff from land can destroy their way of life and that of all of us who are connected to the living ocean.

This weekend I will spend a lot of time in Unity, at Common Ground Country Fair. I've been working to support organic growing methods for many years, as have a large number of people in Maine and around the world. For many advocates, organic methods are desired in order to improve human health and well-being, not just in terms of what we ingest to nourish ourselves, but in order to maintain healthy soil for future crops and avoid toxic components in our food, soil and water.

That's great, as far as it goes, just as the practice of notching the tail of a female lobster or throwing back the ones that are over- or under-sized is great, as far as it goes.

What is being missed here, however, is the need to care for all parts of the living system for its own sake. That shimmering ocean out there is not just a repository of goodies for our ultimate consumption. And, it's not just a home for lobsters and crabs and all the other animals and plants that live there. The ocean is a part of the whole, one that is telling us very clearly that we need to take a more careful look at the impact our actions have on the complex and never-ending relationships of all living things.

This doesn't mean we should stop eating. But, it does mean we should be more attentive to how food comes to us. Does it come by a direct route, in the way Community Supported Agriculture delivers produce, meat and dairy products directly from the farmers' hands to our own? The way Port Clyde Fresh Catch's Community Supported Fishery brings its product to Midcoast residents? When you know the farmer or fisherman who harvests what you eat, you can decide for yourself if the food was produced ethically. When it comes in a box or a can, all you can rely on is what's on the label.

Choosing food that travels over great distances, requiring fossil fuels to transport it and petrochemical or genetically-modified treatment to preserve it, seems clearly to me an unethical decision, when substantial and delicious food sources abound right here. Do I eat oranges? Yup.

Humans may be sentient, and we like to think we are rational, but we're just fallible living creatures, trying to get by. We can come up with endless justifications for the choices we make, but let's not kid ourselves. We're not alone, here. We share all of this beauty and bounty with creatures whose ability to sense and perceive, whose very awareness, lies all to often outside of our own range of thought.

That doesn't mean the nonhuman world is unaware, it just means we're not paying enough attention.

Shlomit Auciello is a writer and photographer living in Rockland. Her column appears here every week or so. She can be reached at auciello@midcoast.com.