Radiolab - The Luckiest Lobster

Episode Date: July 12, 2010

One place you absolutely, positively do not want to be if you're a healthy, middle-aged American lobster: trapped in a suburban grocery store in western Pennsylvania. But that's where this week's podcast begins.

Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. All right. You're listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab. Shorts. From.

W. N. Y. C. C. Yes. And NPR. Wait, do you want to, we should run just at a classic intro. Sure. Hey, I'm Jad.

And I'm Robert. This is the Radio Lab. Podcast. Yes, the podcast. And I got to be honest. I have no idea what we're about to do. This is a... Whoa.

What's this? Are we on a boat? No, but we're going to be. This story actually starts in a supermarket. Why did you give me the boat? Is it a tease? Yes, that's a tease. That's a classic tease.

So give me some supermarket then. I'll give you some supermarket. That's Pat Walters. See, I asked Pat a few weeks ago to... Hi, Pat, by the way. Yes, Pat Walter's regular person here. Pat is one of our producers. I said, we're going to...

I want to... I want him to look for stories about old lobsters. Why? Well, I'm not going to tell you that right now, but you'll see you later on why. Come on, give me a hint. No, I'm not going to give you a hint. But he found a lady. You could just introduce yourself?

What do you want me to say? Whatever you want to say? Okay. Hi, I'm Bonnie Hazen. I'm a registered nurse. And Bonnie told us a pretty crazy story. To just tell you briefly, what happened was I had just gone to our grocery store. Just any old day?

It wasn't a... Just any old day. Nothing special about that day. And where is this just... In McMurray, where I live, Little McMurray, Pennsylvania. We're about 15 miles south of Pittsburgh. Okay. And...

The year, Jed, is 19... 1990. August of 1990. So I was looking around, you know, admiring the new seafood department, and I noticed this tank. A lobster tank. And there were only two lobsters in the tank.

One, she says, was really small. But the other one... This is... huge behemoth that was just so massive. How big is big in this case? He was like from the tip of my finger to my

elbow. Oh, that's big. Yeah, so she sees this big lobster and she's like, that tank is way too small. She thought the lobster looked cramped. Yeah. So she goes over to the guy behind the seafood counter and she's like... What are you going to do with this big lobster?

And he kind of... kind of just let me know that it was a promotional for the new seafood department. Oh, like it was just this big lobster that would get sent around to different supermarkets when they wanted to attract attention. I just made a few more inquiries and worked my way up to the store manager, and he referred me to the vice president of the chain. Oh, straight away. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, because they couldn't answer my questions.

I probably was a little bit of a pain. Right. Like, what are you going to do with them? This is the moment where the manager of the store decides, okay, we have a complaining lady, I think I can solve the problem. He makes her an offer. The bottom line was that I could have him if I could arrange for him to return to Maine. She could have him if she could somehow get him back to Maine? To Maine.

I don't know why. I guess all lobsters are from Maine, he thought. So that's the offer. Like, okay. How do I do that? That's a good question. Is this an unusual experience? I mean, at least this is one case.

This actually has a long history of people rescuing large lobsters. That's Trevor Corson. He's the author of, what is it, the secret life of lobsters? Yeah, the secret life of lobsters. Some people may remember the story of Mary Tyler Moore. No. In 1994, Mary Tyler Moore developed a crush on a large lobster, 12-pounder. Who was named Mr. Grant?

No. He was named Spike. Spike. In Malibu, California in a restaurant called Gladstone, she put up $1,000 for the right to rescue him. Wow. A thousand dollars. And then Rush Limbaugh heard about this.

And he called the restaurant and offered $2,000 for the right to eat Spike. Well, so what did the restaurant do then? It refused. It refused. And there's been other cases since then. Trevor told us that he's actually read about dozens of these lobster restaurants. But our lobster story is the original lobster story. The very first.

I don't want to make the claim forever for sure, but I'm just saying it's that if you googled it, this is your opening lobster. All right. So it's still 1990. Bonnie having now left the supermarket, she's at home thinking now, hmm. I really, I didn't know what to do. And she doesn't have the lobster yet. She has no lobster yet.

That was when I started calling some of the local animal organizations, Animal Rescue League and ASPCA, just locally trying to see. If there was anybody else there, they could help. They really wasn't. They're more into mammals. They've probably never even heard of such a thing. No, no. They basically told me, forget it.

So what, are we talking weeks of research here? Seven hours. Really? Oh, I was on the phone for hours. A little obsessed. But I had the time, and it was kind of fun. So this had become a project for her. Yeah, it's a project.

Yeah. So then I called the Cousteau Society, because I was a member of the Cousteau Society. And they suggested I call our local newspaper. Ah. The press. The article appeared Saturday morning paper. Oh, really? But I have it right here.

Cruising crustacean. Cruising? Like cruising? Like cruising? Yeah, not cruising, but cruising. C-R-U-I-S-I-N. Okay. Crestation. McMurray woman talked supermarket in to releasing large lobster.

I really didn't talk about it. I'm just quoting now. Yes, it's a long story. It began Friday morning when Mrs. Hayeson entered the Dinahegal supermarket. Here in the store is nearly open seafood section, she encountered Nick. Nick? Oh, the lobster has a name.

Nick. Nick, clearly, the king of crustaceans, was lounging in a large, circular saltwater tank, along with several lesser lobsters. They was just the little one. Something in the way Nick moved spoke to Mrs. Hazen,

so she spoke to several giant eagle employees. Mrs. Hazen, who describes herself as environmentally active, told them she thought Nick might be happier back home in Maine than on someone's corning wear. I really didn't say that. Don't worry, Mr.

Hayeson was told Nick was a professional lobster, 70 years old. 70 years old? Yeah. Well, we don't actually know. There's no way to technically age a lobster perfectly. Estimates are from 50 to 100 years for those big suckers. Wow. I'm not an environment.

I didn't say this. I'm not an environmental crazy. I eat lobster, but I think they're over-harvested. Nick must be set free. I didn't say that either. I see you pounding your fists on a desk. Nick must be sent free. They told me I could have Nick if I promised to take him to the ocean.

This Hazen has no money for such a trip. Sounds like I'm destitute. Anyway, I guess that's what appeared then in the Saturdaysper. And that could have been the end of it. But... Saturday morning, we got an early phone call. And there was this woman on the other end of the line. I'm Tony Leon.

And she was saying she was in town. For my dad's funeral. And she was returning that afternoon to Maine. No. To Maine? Portland, Maine. So I figured I'll just bring him back with me. But why would you even think to do something like that?

Because he was a massive lobster in a teeny-weeney tank that literally he could barely move in. Now there's one other thing. Remember, she was back in Pittsburgh for her dad's funeral. So is this in any way an homage to your dad? Oh my God, he loved lobster. He absolutely loved to eat lobster. to eat lobster. To eat lobster.

Yeah, he would eat them like crazy. But he also loved that his oldest daughter would do things that none of his other kids would ever do. Yeah. He would know that I would do something like that. He would expect me to do something like that. So anyway, Tony and Bonnie there on the phone. And at first, Bonnie is actually a little suspicious. So are you sure you're not just saying that to eat him?

Because, I mean, you know. I said, no, I wouldn't eat anything this big. He's, you know, he's too old. Oh, she reassured me and she sounded very nice. So we agreed to meet at Giant Eagle. Of course, now I'm getting my daughter, my youngest daughter. Oh, yeah, hurry up. Are you going to have a dress?

We've got to go to Giant Eagle. And the woman met us at the store. Because she had a, I think it was a two o'clock flight or something like that. She was there with the manager. I didn't know there was going to be a photographer there from a local TV station in Pittsburgh. Anyway, Tony bought the biggest styrofoam cooler she could find. Which really still was a little too small for him. He barely fit.

But we got him in there. taped it up as best we could. Put him in a van and away they went. When we got to the airport, we get up to the reservation desk, handed him to the stewardess, and she put him in a chair in first class. What kind of a... Wait, wait a second.

We were in coach. This lobster's up in the first class. So the plane then touches down in Portland, Maine, where the wildlife police are waiting. Again. Is anyone able to determine what everyone here seems to have assumed that this lobster comes from Maine? No. In fact, it probably wasn't caught here.

Why do you say that? In Maine, you can't catch big lobsters like that. That's illegal. Because the big lobsters are the ones that make more babies. They have size limits that they have on their lobsters. So you are bringing a lobster then to a venue that you reasonably suspect is a foreign place. It's a foreign country. Wow. But he could make friends.

So the next morning. The Harbor Patrol called and said, do you want to go with us? we're going to put him in the water. So we jumped on their boat. And a newspaper reporter went out on the boat with them that morning, too. Okay, so let me, this is from Maine. Bonnie read it to us. Just after 1 p.m., as the Marine Patrol boat locked in 30 feet of water,

Tony Leon carefully dropped Nick over the side. She washed him sink in the choppy, fog-shrouted waters, and then grinned, I'm glad he made it. Isn't that nice? It is nice. But here's the real deep question here. When we look at our fellow creatures, we decide, well, who do we want to protect? We include some groups and we exclude others.

It seems almost entirely arbitrary. For example, why would someone save this lobster? Yeah, I mean, a lobster is not cuddly by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly not soft. I mean, was it its beauty? Well, I actually think that lobsters are very attractive. Really? Do you always think that?

I have always thought, you know, a lobster is like, it's, it's, how can I say this appropriately for radio? They're muscular and curvaceous at the same time. They're like Popeye arms, those claws. And then there's that nice curving tail. And I just think that lobster. You have a hunky lobster calendar? Lobsters of 2008.

I'm not talking about that on the radio. That's just weird That can't be the reason why people keep saving lobsters No So what is it? I think that it has partly to do With our obsession with longevity When it's when it's one that that big and that old

Suddenly the rules are changed Here is a creature You know that has made it through All the tests of life And it deserves our respect now He was unique. He was special, and I just felt that he just didn't deserve to be in that tank at his age. Yeah. Everything kind of converged at that moment.

I'm not the only way I can explain it is just kind of went with it. A story about lobsters. Thank you, Pat. I thought of dropping Pat into the ocean along with Nick. But when I had him upside down, I realized he was kind of. attractive in his own right. As if you could pick me up. Hi, my name is Maggie Miller.

I'm from Cazinovian, New York, and I'm a radio lab listener. The radio lab podcast is funded in part by the Sloan Foundation. End of message.