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27-Pound Lobster

February 24, 2012 by · Comments Off on 27-Pound Lobster 

27-Pound Lobster, A shrimp trawler hauled in a 27-pound lobster off the coast of Maine on Friday, but it won’t be landing on anyone’s dinner plate.

The fisherman instead gave it to the Department of Marine Resources, and the 40-inch-long crustacean is now at the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor and will eventually be released back to the sea, Portland TV station WMTW reported.

“A lobster that big is pretty rare and pretty special. So instead of keeping it in captivity, we think it’s best to release it back in the wild,” aquarium director Amy Hayden Roderigues told WTMW.

If you are wondering how old the lobster is, so are the experts. It seems there is no exact science for telling the age of it.

“We can estimate based on how often we could expect them to molt and how large of an increase after they do molt but it’s speculation,” Department of Marine Resources biologist Carl Wilson told WMTW.

27 Pound Lobster

February 24, 2012 by · Comments Off on 27 Pound Lobster 

27 Pound Lobster, Robert Malone went fishing for shrimp and pulled in a surprise: a 27-pound Maine lobster that could never be viewed as shrimpy.

The beast, caught in the vicinity of Rockland, Maine, was dubbed Rocky, reports the Associated Press. Of course, the size of the lobster’s fearsome claws also bring to mind the meaty fists of that boxer named Balboa.

Malone opted to donate the nearly 40-inch-long crustacean to the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor, the AP says. That’s pretty magnanimous — depending on how you look at it.

Lobster prices aren’t what they once were, having fallen along with the economy around 2008, Reuters reports. But they were above $3.30 a pound in 2010, and the Maine lobster industry is bubbling over what looks to be a record haul in 2011, the new site says.

And, as the AP reported last year, the harvest in 2010 was one to exclaim over, with 93.4 million pounds valued at $308 million.

By the pound, Rocky should be a valuable lobster. But this crustacean’s size could indicate a long life. And geezer lobsters don’t make great eating.

Times Food Editor Russ Parsons on Thursday said he would avoid making dinner out of Rocky.

“The generally accepted wisdom on lobsters is that any time you get above, say, 3 pounds, bigger is certainly not better,” Parsons said. “These are old beasts and they tend to be tough. An aquarium is almost certainly its highest and best use. Preferably a very large aquarium.”

27-pound Lobster

February 23, 2012 by · Comments Off on 27-pound Lobster 

27-pound Lobster, When fisherman Robert Maloney of Cushing brought in his last shrimp trawl of the 2012 season Feb. 17, he did not expect to find the 27-pound crustacean that had gotten caught in the grate that is designed to keep fish and lobsters out of his net.

“I’m mainly a lobsterman,” said Maloney in a Feb. 23 phone interview. “That’s why it was kind of neat. It wouldn’t even fit in one of my lobster traps.” When Maloney saw that he had caught a very large lobster, he brought it to Sgt. Rene Cloutier of Maine Marine Patrol.

“He thought the aquarium would be interested in having it,” said Cloutier.

Department of Marine Resources biologist Carl Wilson said Feb. 23 the healthy male lobster that Cloutier brought to the Maine State Aquarium in West Boothbay Harbor is “in great condition. There’s no evidence of shell disease. It looks like it’s had a pretty good life to date.”

Measuring that life is no easy task, said Wilson. Because lobsters must shed their shells in order to grow, the hard body parts that scientists use to measure growth are discarded on a regular basis.

Wilson said the big-clawed male, which is the largest lobster the DMR lab has ever seen, is probably between 40 and 60 years old. Maloney thought it might be even older, because lobsters may not shed every year as they get on in age.

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