New York Aquarium News
A Giant Lobster’s Happy New Year
You may think you’re looking at a lobster in a pot, but this 14-pounder is actually a recent acquisition by the New York Aquarium, adjusting to its temporary (and pleasantly cool) quarantine tank. In fact, the giant crustacean was on its way to being somebody’s New Year’s dinner when it was found in a Syosset, Long Island supermarket. Luckily, it ended up in the cart of conscientious shopper Alan Stewart, who recognized that this seasoned survivor deserved a kinder fate, and donated him to the Aquarium.
“Hercules,” as Stewart has named him, is estimated to be approximately 90 years old—a senior citizen, though lobsters in the wild are believed to be able to live for more than 100 years. Scientists have not discovered any method to determine the age of a lobster, though age is linked to size. It takes a lobster five to eight years to reach the fishery trade’s legal minimum size of approximately one pound. Lobsters grow throughout their lives by molting repeatedly.
The lobster fishery is officially classified as overfished, and should be considered as a moderate conservation concern for those who like to indulge in the claw and the tail. Because legal market size is below the age of maximum reproductive maturity, a high percentage of lobsters have not had a chance to extrude eggs before being harvested. Yet lobsters management is deemed effective, and in some sections of the crustaceans’ range along the Atlantic coasts of the U.S. and Canada, they are still abundant. To read more about this and other fisheries, and how your seafood purchases affect the health of our oceans, visit www.wcs.org/gofish, where you can also download the WCS Go Fish Seafood Card/Audubon Fish Scale.
Hercules will soon be on exhibit for all visitors to see. The Aquarium looks forward to helping this lobster make the best of his golden years…by avoiding a red one.
