Posted on 03/02/2005 9:30:46 AM PST by Lijahsbubbe
PITTSBURGH - He could be older than Warner Bros. studio, General Motors and the Boy Scouts. He could have survived two world wars and Prohibition. He could have been dinner.
AP Photo
He's Bubba, a 22-pound leviathan of a lobster pulled from the waters off Nantucket, Mass., and shipped to a Pittsburgh fish market.
"It is overwhelming," owner Bob Wholey said. "If you see it, you will never forget it. Customers are just in awe."
On Tuesday, Wholey gave the lobster to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, which will send him to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.
Based on how long it typically takes a lobster to reach eating size — about five to seven years to grow to a pound — Bubba may be 100 years old.
That would make the crustacean older than Warner Bros. (1907), the Boy Scouts (1910) and the states of Arizona and New Mexico (1912), not to mention the first commercial radio station (1920), television (1927) and computers (1943).
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent Wholey a letter asking him to work with the group to release Bubba back in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine.
Another group calling itself People For Eating Tasty Animals reportedly offered Wholey a hefty price for the lobster. At Tuesday's price of $14.98 a pound, Bubba would retail for about $350.
Bob Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine's Lobster Institute, is skeptical and estimates that Bubba is likely 50 years old, but doesn't know for sure. Warm water and plenty of food may have more to do with a lobster's size than how long it's been alive.
"We have looked at all kinds of things to figure out if there is any way to age a lobster. I'm guessing 100 years is probably too high but I can't argue with it because you don't know," Bayer said.
No matter his age, Bubba dwarfs a typical 1 1/2-pound lobster. He's about three feet long and took up about half a 4-foot-by-4-foot tank at Wholey's Market. A lobster sharing his tank was about as big as one of Bubba's claws.
A handful of people who wandered by the tank Tuesday were impressed. One woman quietly said, "Wow," while a man said, "He's serious."
Although his business is to sell seafood, Wholey says Bubba was never bound to be boiled and buttered. And he's become a little philosophical after seeing the lobster, which could be twice his 54 years.
"I don't think you could eat something that big. ... What range of emotions does a lobster have? Greed? Lust? Love? I'm just going to give him to the zoo and hope he lives another 100 years," Wholey said.
"If you sat down and ate this thing, wouldn't that be a bit shellfish?"
clearly nothing very important happening in the old 'burg
Good grief!
Mmmm. Lobster.
I couldn't eat something that looks that gross anyway.
That's a freakin' large lobster!
You know, I never looked into crustacean physiolgy. This is interesting though....
They'd better keep an eye on him.
He'll eat the smaller lobsters if he getys the chance.
Them yankees sure do have big crawdads.
Even older than Joan Rivers?
I could :)
::crack:: pass the butter!
I could see it now... hiring a dutch farmer to churn a huge vat just for that one dinner plate!
Now I'm hungry...
Might be why he's in there with a smaller one right now. Thing has to eat sometime. Whats a $25 meal for his biggest attraction?
Hey, if I was the owner I would've sold tickets for a shot at the lobster cocktail sauce dunk tank!
...so what is the life span of a lobster anyway? Glad he's going to a good home; he looks like a bully good stud and I hope there are plenty of female lobsters there so that he can repopulate our dinner tables.
Yikes that thing could break my forearm with those pinchers.
Why is this thing going to a Pittsburgh zoo? Seems like F'N Kerry would introduce a bill to repatriate all humongous lobsters to their areas of origin, namely Whaling Capital USA, Nantucket.
PING.
For some reason that's making me really hungry. All I can think about are those claws, and how much of that good claw meat there'd be to dip in butter!
I'd better go get some lunch.
thats a big crawdad
Lobster penny bouts.
"5 bucks on the underdog."
"Yer crazy!"
Yeah, that monster does have to eat something sometime.
He'd actually be good advertisement.
"We have the best lobster in the area, even Bubba agrees!"
Cue shot of monster lobster menacing the smaller ones.
Well, as Tom Horn, the legendary cowboy once remarked when confronting his first lobster meal, "I don't think I ever et a bug THAT big before..."
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