Our Blue Ocean Discovery Center at Hampton Beach opened in June 2013. The 2018 season was our most successful one and we are thrilled that we were able to talk to more than 20,000 visitors. Many people said that they always made it a point to come to the Discovery Center when they came to Hampton Beach and we are so pleased to become part of their families’ vacation memories.
Over the course of the next several months we are going to report on different animals and events at the Center. Our volunteers’ favorite 2018 event is the story of the adopted lobster; so here it is.
In July, we received an email from a woman who told us that her son wanted to save a lobster. She planned to buy a lobster from a grocery store and wanted to know the best way for her family to save it. We gave her two suggestions: she could release the lobster in one of the local harbors or she could bring it to us and we would care for it.
She responded that her son was afraid that it would be caught if it was released in a harbor and that the promise of being well cared for in our observation tank seemed like a good future for the lobster. They brought the male lobster to the Discovery Center and we put it in one of our observation tanks. We have two observation tanks and each tank has many occupants, including minnows, several species of crabs, hermit crabs, and sea stars. One tank had two lobsters (male and female) and the other tank had two medium sized horseshoe crabs. We chose to put the lobster in with the horseshoe crabs to minimize any fighting that might occur with the very territorial lobsters, but it became obvious that that arrangement was not in the best interest of the horseshoe crabs.
We moved the new lobster into the tank with the other two large crustaceans, and the daily lobster wars began. The lobsters never harm or really even touch each other but they do like to move around the tank and jockey for their favorite position. Many visitors have enjoyed watching their antics and we posted a video of them on Facebook . Our young lobster enthusiast has returned to the Discovery Center several times to visit “his lobster” and we have enjoyed taking care of it for him.
Our volunteers like telling this story to our visitors because it shows how kind and caring young children can be. Often we see children who have never held a crab before and may be afraid of an animal that is unfamiliar. We hope that by showing them how to hold it and by teaching them about the animal that they will treat all animals in a respectful way. We especially like to see the parents interact with their children and we appreciate how very thoughtful and caring the parents are.
Below, you can view a video of two of the lobsters:
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