Bump occasionally sets loose lobsters he's not allowed to keep, such as egg-bearing females. Never has he sent one back to the wild at a customer's request, he said. Frankly, he doesn't "get it." But he doesn't mind helping out friends.
"I know when they get that old and that big they tend to get finicky," Bump said. "The fear is if you release them they won't eat or get back into their normal routine. But I think this one has a pretty good chance because I'm releasing him in cold water at a good time of year."
Jeff Grolig delivers 15-pound Donovan to Kurt Friesland of J.J. McDonnell & Co. in Jessup. If the lobster survives, his journey has just begun.
(Dudley M. Brooks -- The Washington Post)
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Moving Off the Docks In January, Dina ElBoghdady explored the ways technology is transforming a once- parochial seafood business into a global enterprise.
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Dan McKiernan, deputy director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, said lobsters with shells longer than five inches (measured from the back of their eyes to the start of their tails) are protected up to 20 miles from shore at Cape Cod Bay. But that doesn't guarantee safety.
"The larger the lobster, the further it walks," McKiernan said. "We wouldn't expect a lobster of that size to remain close to shore forever."
The track record is not good. Aside from Bubba in Pittsburgh, there's 14-pound Hercules, rescued from a supermarket lobster tank last year by a group of schoolchildren in Port Angeles, Wash., who sent it to the Lobster Conservancy for release. Cowan, the conservancy's scientist, said Hercules died in his crate after arriving in Maine, probably because of trauma from the cross-country trip. Of the six lobsters her group has received since 2000, she counts only Freddy from Florida as a success story, she said.
Linda Diciaula, a seafood lover, spotted Freddy in a tank at her favorite restaurant about three years ago, "fell in love with that ugly, beady-eyed creature," and talked the restaurant owner into giving it to her for free. "He was sympathetic," she said.
Diciaula nourished him for days before sending him to Cowan, who gradually acclimated him to the correct water temperature, fed him for weeks, and watched over him daily as he learned to catch live food.
"When we released him, he hung out under my wharf for weeks," Cowan said, though she does not know for sure if he is still alive.
Even if he only survived a month, it's worth it to Diciaula . A 15-pound lobster produces about 20 times as many eggs over three years as a one-pound lobster, according to the University of Maine's Lobster Institute. They can mate only with males of equal size. "So if Freddy got out there and did his part for the lobster population in one month, that's great," said Diciaula, a dog groomer who ate lobster until she met Freddy.
Chuck C. Anderson, vice president of seafood procurement for Giant Food LLC, said huge lobsters are usually purchased for special occasions by people with a lot of money to spend. And they taste just as good as the more common one-pounder if cooked properly.
"Sometimes the tail gets a little tough because it's so muscular," Anderson said. "It's like a round steak instead of a filet mignon."
Grolig's customer will never know. But she's not turned off lobsters altogether. The day she ransomed Donovan, Grolig said, the woman also ordered 10 pounds of lobster -- smaller ones -- for dinner.
Staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
