/ 3 March 2005

Trip to the zoo proves too much for Bubba

He may have survived two world wars and prohibition. But a trip to the zoo proved too much for a 10kg lobster named Bubba.

The leviathan of a lobster died on Wednesday afternoon at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, about a day after he was moved from Wholey’s Market, said zoo spokesperson Rachel Capp and fish market owner Bob Wholey.

”They’re very finicky. It could have been a change in the water. You have no idea,” Wholey said.

Bubba spent a week at the market after he was pulled from the waters off Nantucket, Massachusetts. He died in a quarantine area of the zoo’s aquarium, where he was being checked to see if he was healthy enough to make a trip to an aquarium at a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum, Capp said.

Bubba will be examined to try to determine the cause of death; Capp and Wholey guessed it may have been the stress of being moved.

Based on how long it typically takes a lobster to reach eating size — about five to seven years to grow to a pound — some estimated Bubba was about 100 years old. Marine biologists said 30 to 50 years was more likely. – Sapa-AP