The lucky crustacean, rescued from Rochester, found freedom this week as he was set free into the Sound by Humane Long Island in Riverhead.
LONG ISLAND, NY — To mark National Lobster Day this week, one rare, 1-in-30 million orange lobster saw sweet freedom as it was liberated from a Rochester grocery store into the Long Island Sound in Riverhead.
According to John DiLeonardo, president and executive director of Humane Long Island, located on Sound Avenue in Riverhead, the organization freed the rare lobster, named “Jean-Clawd Van Dam” into the Long Island Sound Wednesday, the day before National Lobster Day Thursday.
The lobster “clawed his way to freedom” after being spotted by Good Samaritan Kyle Brancato at a Tops supermarket in Rochester, DiLeonardo said.
Humane Long Island asked other stores to pardon other lobsters to mark the day, whether they’re orange, blue, or traditional brown.
It wasn’t the first time that rare orange lobsters have made the news locally. Last year, another lucky crustacean was sprung from a Southampton supermarket.
After reading about Human Long Island’s seven previous lobster rescues in the news, Brancato contacted DiLeonardo, who agreed to lend a hand, contacting his colleagues at In Defense of Animals.
Next, volunteers David Gorman and Denise Brown brought the lobster to Humane Long Island’s rehab center in Riverhead, and Jean-Clawd was freed into the Long Island Sound Wednesday morning.
According to DiLeonardo, while the chance of finding an orange lobster is 1 in 30 million, what’s rarer still is for one of them to be returned to the sea: 100 million lobsters are trapped and killed in the US annually, with even ultra-rare orange, yellow, and blue lobsters being cooked or confined to cramped aquariums as “mere curiosities,” he said.
“Lobsters are sensitive, intelligent animals who can 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,” Di Leonardo said. “Humane Long Island urges everyone to celebrate National Lobster Day by leaving lobsters off their plate, because no compassionate person should boil an animal alive.”
Humane Long Island notes that 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 unnecessary, he maintained.
He added that Brancato, the Good Samaritan who rescued Jean-Clawd, told him that he has vowed never to eat a lobster again after getting to know Jean-Clawd and being moved to save him.
DiLeonardo said that every person who goes vegan saves the lives of nearly 200 animals like Jean-Clawd every year “simply by leaving them off their plate.”
Stores willing to pardon a lobster for National Lobster Day are invited to contact Humane Long Island directly, he said. “All lobsters are sentient and want to live, whether they’re orange, blue, or traditional brown,” DiLeonardo added.