22-pound lobster spared from restaurant plate dies after move to zoo

Associated Press
March 3, 2005 BUBBA0304


PITTSBURGH -— He spent decades dodging lobster pots, but in the end, Bubba was done in by a trip to the zoo.

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.