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Animal Defenders of Westchester |
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Home Page We advocate on all animal protection and exploitation issues, including experimentation, factory farming, rodeos, breeders and traveling animal acts. Animal Defenders of Westchester |
Campaigns Claws to Celebrate The lobster who didn't come to dinner BY DENISE M. BONILLA It was hardly a dignified end to a long life. Stuffed into a tank in a corner of the seafood section of a Plainview
ShopRite, with chilled littleneck clams and a line of cocktail sauce bottles
as neighbors, Hercules' future was looking grim. But before the unusually large lobster, thought to be nearly 90 years
old, could be bought, boiled and buttered, it was spotted by a Merrick man
who was servicing the tank. Now Hercules will live out the golden years
under care of the New York Aquarium in Coney Island. "He avoided the fishermen's nets all these years and he could have ended
up on someone's plate," said Alan Stewart, who paid $103 for the crustacean,
upon whom he bestowed the name "Hercules" before donating it to the
aquarium. Stewart owns Aqua-Visions, a Merrick company that installs and
services tanks and aquariums. The lobster, who is believed to be a male, weighs about 14 1/2 pounds and
is about 2 1/2 feet long, said aquarium curator Paul Sieswerda. Its sex
hasn't been officially determined and exact measurements haven't been taken,
he said, because the creature is being held in quarantine for 30 days to
make sure it is healthy and adjusts to its residence. It then will be
examined and put on display in the aquarium's Sea Cliffs exhibit, with sea
lions and seals as neighbors, helping visitors learn about sea predator/prey
relationships. "He's robust, has no abnormalities to his shell," Sieswerda said. "As far
as I can tell, this animal looks in great shape." Because lobsters continually outgrow their shells, and variables such as
water temperature and food can impact their size, Hercules' exact age will
likely never be determined. American lobsters are known to gain about 1 1/4
pounds every seven years. It is unusual for a supermarket to have such a large lobster, Sieswerda
said, because crustaceans of that size tend to be found farther offshore and
often don't fit into the lobster traps used by fishermen who sell to seafood
markets. Lobsters in supermarkets usually weigh from 1 1/4 to 3 pounds. Hercules is certainly not the heaviest crustacean ever captured. That
distinction, according to The Guinness Book of World Records, belongs to a
44-pound, 6-ounce lobster caught off Nova Scotia in 1977. Stewart said he would have taken Hercules home with him if the aquarium
hadn't stepped up to the plate. "I had to save him," Stewart, 57, said. "I can't rescue all the lobsters, but I pardoned this guy for New
Year's." Copyright (c) 2006, Newsday, Inc. -------------------- This article originally appeared at:
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/brooklyn/nyc-lilobs074578777jan07,0,90917.story
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