21-pound lobster caught off coast of Cape Cod; fate uncertain

  
Elise Costa holds the 21-pound-lobster (Elise Costa/WBZ)
It's not the largest lobster on record, but a giant 21-pound lobster caught off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., has claws nearly a foot long.
"I had its tail on my shoulder and I had each claw in one of my hands, and it was as long as my arms and as big as my torso, " said Elise Costa, restaurant manager of Capt'n Elmer's, to WBZ NewsRadio. "It's giant."

Back in February, a 27-pound-lobster was caught off the coast of Maine, setting the record for the largest known lobster in the state's history. Elaine Jones, education director for the state's Department of Marine Resources told Reuters that its claws were big enough to snap a man's arm. "All the weight is in the claws," Jones said. "It would break your arm."

Maine state law prohibits fisherman from keeping lobsters longer than five inches. So, the 40-inch behemoth, described as roughly being the size of a 3-year-old human baby, was returned safely to the ocean waters.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest lobster in history was caught off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1977 and weighed 44 pounds.

However, because it was caught in an unrestricted area, the fate of the 21-pound Cape Cod lobster remains uncertain.

"Usually, for every four and a half pounds of live lobster, once you cook it and clean it, you get one pound of meat. So 21 divided by four and a half, that would give you about five pounds of meat," Costa said, in what could be a foreboding analysis of the crustacean's fate.

Costa said the lobster would remain on display for a few days before either being sold or raffled for charity. A benevolent benefactor seems to be the lobster's last hope for survival.

"Often when we have lobsters this large, people come in to catch them, and they like to release them, which is kinda cool," Costa told WBZ.

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