From MSNBC:
updated 10:05 a.m. PT, Sat., Jan. 10, 2009
NEW YORK - A 140-year-old lobster that was destined to adorn a dinner plate is back in the ocean after a seafood restaurant in New York City granted him a reprieve.
The 20-pound crustacean, named George, was returned to the wild Saturday in a rocky cove in Kennebunkport, Maine, less than a mile from the summer home of former President George H.W. Bush.
George the lobster was transported to Maine by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which had beseeched City Crab and Seafood to allow the lobster to go free.
I can just imagine this poor creature swimming around in a restaurant's fish tank, waiting for the sweet release of death only to be thrown back into the wild because of some tree hugger with good intentions. I can also imagine the indigestion some unsuspecting whale or shark will get when they chomp down on Old Red the second he's out in the open water. Such is life.
Sharks and especially whales do not eat lobsters. Sharks eat swimming fish; whales similarly plus, some, plankton; grey whales eat crustaceans but there are no grey whales off Maine.
ReplyDeleteLobsters are bottom dwellers, eating stuff that drifts down, basically marine garbage, cleaners up (think of that when you next eat a lobster.) Their main predators are other bottom dwellers, cod, haddock, flounder - there are now few of those!
Except for man, this lobster is not at all likely to be preyed upon.
This was a kindness, one species appreciating and rescuing another. Appreciate kindness! You might need some yourself one day: what goes around, comes around.