An ultra-rare orange lobster returned to the ocean off the coast of Long Island Wednesday after the crustacean was discovered at an upstate supermarket – just a claw-length away from ending up on someone’s plate.
The “1-in-30-million find” — nicknamed Jean-Clawd Van Damme — was rescued from a Tops supermarket near Rochester, New York on Sept. 15 by shopper Kyle Brancato, who immediately recognized the animal as something special and snatched him up.
“The Atlantic Ocean is nowhere near Rochester, so he panicked,” said Humane Long Island executive director John Di Leonardo, who Brancato contacted for rescue advice.
The upstate shopper was able to house Jean-Clawd in a cooler filled with tank water until volunteers drove the crustacean down to Long Island’s North Shore, where he was “rehabbed” by Di Leonardo before he was released back into the ocean Wednesday morning.
“We gave him a second chance at life,” Di Leonardo told The Post of the ultra-rare lobster. “We kill about 100 million lobsters every year in the US, so the fact that he got to survive and he got to make it is a feat in and of itself.”
The release was done just a day before National Lobster Day on Sept. 25.
“I wanted to turn this holiday on its head, as it’s largely a marketing holiday,” Di Leonardo said. “Many countries [like Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand] have banned boiling them alive because it’s incredibly cruel: They feel every moment of it, it takes a long time for them to die.”
The animal rescuer – who reports tossing back eight lobsters to the ocean in the last two years – argues the lobsters are “starved” from the time they are caught to their days inside a grocery store tank, which can be up to a month.
“It’s so stressful they’ll often fight – or self-mutilate or cannibalize one another,” he said. “Rubber bands cause them a lot of pain.”
Di Leonardo said he will often spend about an hour in the water with crustaceans introduced back into the wild, making sure they’re healthy.
“A lot of them have really different personalities,” he said. “Some of them will lift their claws and threaten you, others will swim away from you … on two occasions they swam closer to us and then swam away.
“It’s always a treat.”
Di Leonardo encouraged “any stores that would like to pardon a lobster for the holiday” to reach out to his organization.
Long Island lobsters have previously been “pardoned” at Northport Fish & Lobster, Stop and Shop’s Southampton and Syosset locations and ShopRite of Bay Shore.
“We don’t care if they’re blue, brown or orange,” Di Leonardo added. “They want to live all the same.”
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