No Butter for Bubba, the 22-Pound Lobster

37 minutes ago Top Stories - AP


By MIKE CRISSEY, Associated Press Writer

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?"


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pot that lobster!

Actually, wouldn't the meat not taste right being that old? Ask the B52's.

I'm no tree hugger, but if that Lobster evaded the nets for a 100 years he deserved to be thrown back.

Milo, NYC
Send it to me

I don't agree ( imagine that..lol). Since he has braved the nets for all those years.... put the old guy in a safe haven and let him live with plenty of food and a couple of hotties in his tank or habitat for his pleasure... the only thing that old bastard should do is eat and screw... he earned it!!!!! PS. Do they have Lobster Viagra????

Bubba the lobster dies after trip to the zoo
After years of dodging the boiling pot, 22-pounder done in by move.The Associated Press
Updated: 10:39 a.m. ET March 3, 2005PITTSBURGH, Pa. - He spent decades dodging lobster pots, but in the end, Bubba was done in by a trip to the zoo.

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The 22-pound lobster died yesterday at the Pittsburgh Zoo, about a day after he was moved there from a fish market.

Bubba died in a quarantine area of the zoo’s aquarium, where he was being checked out to see if he was healthy enough to travel to a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum.

Experts will examine Bubba to try to figure out why he died, but the owner of the fish market thinks it had to do with the stress of the move. Bob Wholey says lobsters are “very finicky.”

Bubba had spent about a week at Wholey’s Market after being caught off the coast of Massachusetts.

Marine biologists estimate Bubba was 30 to 50 years old.

R.I.P. Bubba ...

@#$%&

Folks should've let the old bugger,
like the Stones, alone to do
their own thing............................

Even I'm disturbed at the notion of ''lobster viagra''... Good job!

They Killed Bubba. The old lobster goes 100 years in the ocean, we kill him in 4 days.

Milo, NYC
The police in NYC, chased a lobster right in the park