130-Year-Old Lobster Gets Gets Pardoned From Dinner Tank

20-pound lobster had been living in a clam bar's fish tank

When you're a lobster and you've managed to avoid the stock pot for 130 years, you probably deserve to retire in peace.

"Larry the Lobster," a 20-pound specimen that dates to the 19th Century, has been living in the fish tank at Peter's Clam Bar in Island Park. 

But as a stunt to celebrate National Lobster Month, the restaurant teamed up with Hempstead officials to pardon the crustacean earlier this week.

Department of Conservation and Waterways staff teamed up with the town and the restaurant to release the lobster back to the ocean.

According to the Long Island Sound Lobster Research Initiative, as recently as the late 1990s the value of the region's lobster catch was greater than all other fish combined. 

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