Just don't be tapin' MY traps!

March 25, 2004 2:17 PM

I want my LTV, brothuh! Interesting research in the field of trapping lobsters from the University of New Hampshire. Like so many people, I learned about lobsters on the street, so it's nice to see some hard science.
posted by Mayor Curley (9 comments total)

I like lobster as much as the next guy...or did, anyway, before I watched those videos, in which the sped-up lobsters look like creepy menacing scorpions or roaches or alien bugs: nothing that made me think: mmmm, those would be good with melted butter!
posted by kozad at 2:25 PM on March 25, 2004

Over 75% of the lobsters that escape the trap do so through the entrance

Hmmm. I wonder if it might be time for a better lobster trap?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:01 PM on March 25, 2004

Lobsters for a long time were considered a poor mans food, the scrapple or spam of its day. Until we fished out everything that was good and in a great marketing turn it became fashionable if not prolific (for now). Lobster meat is basically worthless in terms of calories almost no fat it is the butter that contains all the goodness.
posted by stbalbach at 3:18 PM on March 25, 2004

And shellfish like shrimp/lobster are more insect than,well, say other 'seafood'?
posted by rough ashlar at 6:22 PM on March 25, 2004

Kozad: if you want to see the real deal about lobster, pay a visit to a lobster processing plant! They've got lobsters flopping around on the concrete warehouse floor while forklifts carrying crates of lobsters run them over. Also, if you are planning on having offspring, it is highly recommended that you don't eat lobster - they are the vacuum cleaner of the sea - sucking up trash and pollutants from the ocean floor.

And poor man's food is right! Prison ships once served only lobster as it was possible to wade knee deep in the ocean and pluck dozens at a time once. Now lobsters are largely gone, as are most of the organisms New Hampshire ocean. Although this lobster project proved that there may be more lobsters than we thought there were (because we always calculated their population based on catch numbers). Still, the ocean is dead.
posted by crazy finger at 6:48 PM on March 25, 2004

Lobster processing plant? Have to look into that. I eat one or two lobsters a year, caught by a friend. Never thought lobsters were processed like chickens.

You sound like a vegan, crazy finger...although I've had some omnivorous friends in the music business who've forsworn catfish cuz of what they eat. Bottomfeeders, like lobsters.

And: the ocean isn't quite yet dead. Soon, maybe. But you shouldn't oughta give up yet.
posted by kozad at 7:28 PM on March 25, 2004

kozad: But you shouldn't oughta give up yet.

I agree. We have to consume every last piece of edible food from the oceans before we turn on each other.
posted by gen at 8:54 PM on March 25, 2004

You think that's cool? They don't have it posted, but the same lab has also put cameras on the backs of lobsters so that you can watch the world from a lobster eye view - all set to cool jazz! It's mindblowingly cool.

mmmmm......marine bio....how I love you and enjoy studying in your warm glowing warming glow.
posted by jearbear at 9:29 PM on March 25, 2004

Side note: 32000 posts is a lot.
posted by oissubke at 8:55 AM on March 26, 2004