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Hey there, it's Lulu here. St. Patrick's Day is coming up in a couple of weeks, and so a lot of people are, you know, getting out their leprechaun hats and talking about the luck of the Irish. But what about the luck of the lobsters?
You know? Ever heard about that? Well, today we have a story about the luckiest lobster I have ever heard of. It's a really big lobster. And the cool thing to know about lobsters is that as they age, they just keep growing and growing and growing.
growing and growing and growing and growing and growing and they don't seem to wear out or get sick or weak as they age like most other creatures do. And it seems like the only thing that really makes a lobster die isn't really old age so much as freak accidents or, you know, getting parasites or a disease or something.
And so this has led a lot of people to wonder if maybe down in the ocean, there are some really big, really old lobsters, like centuries old. We don't know, but it might be. And today's story is about a really big lobster, meaning a very old lobster, who was looking like he was about to meet his accidental end until, well, it got real lucky.
I'm going to hand it off to Radiolab hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krowich to tell you the story and take you on quite an odyssey. Here we go. I got to be honest, I have no idea what we're about to do. This is a... Whoa, what's this? Are we in 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, it's a tease. It's a classic tease. So give me some supermarket then. I'll give you some supermarket. Okay.
That's Pat Walters. See, I asked Pat a few weeks ago to... Hi, Pat, by the way. Yes, Pat Walters, regular person here. Pat is one of our producers. I said 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 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, um...
And Bonnie told us a pretty crazy story. Just to tell you briefly, what happened was I had just gone to our grocery store. Just any old day? Just any old day, nothing special about that day. And where is this? In McMurray, where I live, little McMurray, Pennsylvania. We're about 15 miles south of Pittsburgh. Okay. And...
The year, Jad, is 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 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. Yeah.
So she goes over to the guy behind the seafood counter and she's like, well, what are you going to do with this big lobster? And he 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. And I just made a few more inquiries and worked my way up to the store manager and he referred
Oh, straight away? Right. 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? Mm-hmm. 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, 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, I don't.
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's, she put up $1,000 for the right to rescue him. Wow. $1,000. 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. Still refused.
And there's been other cases since then. Trevor told us that he's actually read about dozens of these lobster rescue stories. 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 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 out there that could help. And there really wasn't. They're more into mammals. We'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 has become a project for her. Yeah, it's a project. 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. Ah.
The press. The article appeared in the Saturday morning paper. Oh, really? But I have it right here. Cruisin' Crustacean. Cruisin' like cruise, like cruisin'? Yeah, not cruising, but cruisin'. C-R-U-I-S-I-N. Okay. Crustacean. McMurray woman talks supermarket into releasing large lobster. I really didn't talk about that. I'm just quoting now.
Nick? Oh, the lobster has a name. Nick. Nick. Yeah. Yeah.
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 ware. I really didn't say that. Don't worry, Mrs. Hazen 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 environmental... 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 fist on a desk. Nick must be set 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 a destitute.
Anyway, I guess that's what appeared then in the society. And that could have been the end of it, but we'll be back in a moment. Hello, parents, homeschoolers, and teachers. Trusty narrator here from the Who's Smarted podcast. Our fifth
♪♪♪
All right, we're back. On with the story. 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. Yes. 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 weeny 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?
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, they're on the phone. And at first, Bonnie's actually a little suspicious. Are you sure you're not just saying this to eat him? Because, I mean, you know. And I said, no, I wouldn't eat anything this big. He's, you know, he's too old. She reassured me, and she sounded very nice. So we agreed to meet at Giant Eagle. ♪
And the woman met us at the store. She was there with the manager and... Which really still was a little too small for him. Oh.
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 a second. We were in coach. This lobster is 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 can 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 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 Leone carefully dropped Nick over the side. She watched him sink in the choppy, fog-shrouded 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?
I actually think that lobsters are very attractive. Really? Do you always think that? I have always thought, you know, they're muscular and curvaceous at the same time. They're like Popeye arms, those claws. And then there's that nice curving tail. Yeah.
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 one that's that big and that old, suddenly the rules are changed. Here is a creature 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, I don't know, he just didn't deserve to be in that tank at his age. Everything kind of converged at that moment. And that's the only way I can explain it. Just kind of went with it. ♪♪♪
A story about lobsters. Thank you, Pat. That'll do it for today. Thanks so much for listening. More stories about this lumpy old planet of ours coming up in just two weeks. Hi, my name is Maggie Miller. I'm from Casanova, New York, and I'm a Radiolab listener. The Radiolab podcast is funded in part by the Sloan Foundation.
End of message. Hi, I'm Emma, and I live in Portland, Maine. Here are the staff credits. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Jnanasambandam, Matt Kielty,
Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton. Hey, Ali.
teeth do coyotes have? Uh, I don't know. Well, do you know how high a coquifrog can jump? I don't even know what those are. Dang. What about, okay, camels? Do you know anything about camels? Not really, but that's what badger questions are for. Right.
One of our favorite segments of Terrestrials is where we all stop talking and the badgers, a.k.a. the kids with badgering questions, get to ask our experts everything they're dying to know. And we need some of those for our upcoming episodes. We're looking for questions about coyotes, rats, coquifrogs, camels, and farts. Farts.
Email us a voice recording of your question along with your name, age, location, and you just might hear your badgering voice on an upcoming episode of Terrestrials. And where can they send those, Alan? Terrestrials at WNYC.org. That's T-E-R-R-E-S-T-R-I-A-L-S at WNYC.org.