By John Di Leonardo
Lobsters are typically brown, only turning red after being boiled alive; however, 1 in 30 million lobsters are orange while they're still alive. Today, my organization Humane Long Island had the pleasure of not only removing one of these ultra-rare lobsters from a tank where they were being sold for food but also had the pleasure of releasing one into the wild.
Arriving with a shipment of traditional brown lobsters before July 4th, the rare orange lobster—now affectionately named "Clementine"—was immediately a celebrity at the Southampton grocery store—being fed shrimps by store management and being nicknamed “Pinky” by the manager’s young daughter.
While finding an orange lobster is 1 in 30 million, rarer still is for one of them to be returned to the sea. Billions of lobsters are killed annually, with even ultra-rare orange, yellow, and blue lobsters being cooked or confined to cramped aquariums as mere curiosities, like one less lucky orange lobster named “Crush” who was put on display at the Denver aquarium last month after being discovered at a Red Lobster restaurant. Clementine almost suffered the same fate, reportedly being offered to the Long Island Aquarium who fortunately rebuffed her pardon, leaving the door open for us to learn of her plight and whisk her back to her ocean home.
After the Southampton Animal Shelter alerted me to the unusual crustacean, I reached out to Stop & Shop management who quickly agreed to donate the rare lobster to Humane Long Island for rehabilitation and release to the wild. (buying is never rescue as paying for an animal only feeds the cycle of supply and demand)
Acharya Tulsi Ji (Photo provided by: Arvind Vora)
Over the next few days, we readied a cold, saltwater tank for rehabilitation, and today we reacclimated the lucky crustacean to the sea. Within hours, Clementine was swimming, foraging, and exploring the Long Island Sound, playfully following us around before disappearing into the ocean depths where she’ll travel as far as 100 miles or more each year.
Like all aquatic animals, lobsters feel pain and suffer when taken from their ocean homes to be eaten or confined to cramped aquariums. Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, and the Italian city of Reggio Emilia have made it illegal to boil lobsters alive while they're still conscious; however, boiling them at all is wholly unnecessary. Every person who goes vegan saves the lives of nearly 200 animals—including aquatic ones—every year.
For this week’s Anuvrat, I invite you to celebrate Clementine's successful journey back to the wild by respecting all lobsters and not eating them, because no compassionate person would boil an animal alive.
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John Di Leonardo is the founding director of Humane Long Island. He was previously the Senior Manager of Grassroots Campaigns and Animals in Entertainment Campaigns for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). He has a Master's degree in Anthrozoology from Canisius College. He also earned a graduate certificate in Jain Studies from the International School of Jain Studies (ISJS) in India. John can be reached at [email protected]. (Photo provided by the author)
