Yours truly, Trevor Corson, looking for lobster stuff. Got any? E-mail me
This was where I posted my irregular ramblings, reports, and pictures as the author of THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS from 2004 through 2006. This page is no longer active, and serves simply as an archive. To read new entries starting in 2007, please visit my new Lobster Blog.
To see scenes from Little Cranberry Island, where THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS takes place, and to read an interview with me, click here. To see photos of some of the people featured in the book, click here, and view the blog entries below. To see more pictures of weird lobster stuff, click here.
The heroic effort to save Bubba the lobster, which I reported yesterday, has gone horribly awry. Bubba, the 22-pound leviathan, reportedly died on the way to the aquarium.
What's the lesson here? If you've read THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS, you'll know that a big lobster's best friend is not an animal-rights activist from PeTA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), but rather a lobster fisherman from Maine. That's right: for decades Maine lobstermen have been releasing all lobsters larger than a few pounds back into the sea, as a conservation measure. Reportedly, Bubba was caught in the waters off Martha's Vineyard, where fishermen don't follow this rule.
PeTA likes to champion the high-profile cases of big lobsters like Bubba, which attract media attention, even if these efforts frequently end with the death of the animal. But PeTA would save many more large lobsters from the pot if they joined forces with the Maine lobster industry to convince fishermen elsewhere to follow the rule protecting big lobsters. Unfortunately, because PeTA is opposed to the human use and eating of animals under any circumstances, they reject outright the possibility that lobstermen themselves might care about saving lobsters like Bubba, too. That's a shame.
P.S. This from an AP story on Bubba's death, dateline March 3, 2005:
"Other large lobsters didn't fare well after they were caught, too. In 1985, a 25-pound lobster that the New England Aquarium planned to give to a Tokyo museum died when the water temperature rose and the salt dropped in its aquarium. In 1990, a 17 1/2-pound lobster named Mimi died just days after being flown to a restaurant in Detroit. Last year, a 14-pound lobster named Hercules that was rescued by a Washington state middle school class died before it could be released off the coast of Maine."
And then there's the story about Mary Tyler Moore, Rush Lambaugh, and their fight over the giant lobster "Spike," a tragic-comic tale I relate in THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS . . .
