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140-year-old lobster back free in ocean
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-11 11:15
George, a 140-year-old lobster who was the popular mascot at a Manhattan eatery has been released back into the ocean waters off the coast of Maine lately, high-tailing it to freedom. PETA coordinated the release of the lobster which had spent a good deal of it's life in a crowded tank. City Crab and Seafood Company, which agreed to PETA's request that it give the 20-pounder his liberty, yesterday set the ancient crustacean free so that he could be driven to Maine and released. "It seemed like the right thing to do," said Keith Valenti, manager of the Park Avenue South eatery. According to Dr. Jaren G. Horsley, an invertebrate zoologist, lobsters have a "sophisticated nervous system" and feel "a great deal of pain" when cut or cooked alive. And because lobsters do not enter a state of shock when they are hurt, they feel every moment of their slow, painful deaths when cooked in a pot of boiling water. Scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., have found that lobsters use complicated signals to establish social relationships and take long-distance seasonal journeys, often traveling more than 100 miles in a year. "We applaud the folks at City Crab and Seafood for their compassionate decision to allow this noble old-timer to live out his days in freedom and peace," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "We hope that their kind gesture serves as an example that these intriguing animals don't deserve to be confined to tiny tanks or boiled alive." |
