'Lucky' no longer (From Western Telegraph)

'Lucky' no longer

LUCKY the giant lobster looked to be the chanciest crustacean around when he was saved from the cooking pot by a kind-hearted fishmonger.

He was all set to take up a new home in Tenby's Silent World Aquarium, where he arrived in a flurry of publicity on Friday.

But sadly, the lobster is lucky no longer. The magnificent specimen, weighing in at half-a-stone, with claws bigger than human hands, died just hours after taking up residence in his new tank.

"He'd been on a fishmonger's slab for two days and was really too big and too old to survive out of water for that long," said Silent World's Mike Batt. "He didn't look very good when he arrived here, so we got him in a tank with an air-stone. "But, sadly, when we arrived the following morning he was dead."

Lucky, reckoned to be about 20 years old, was landed off the coast of Swansea last week. Fishmonger Christian Thomas - who could have sold him for up to £50 - decided he should be given a second chance.

So, on Friday morning, Lucky was covered in damp seaweed and packed off to Tenby in a polystyrene box, aboard a BBC Radio Wales car, with Good Morning Wales listeners following his journey.

"We planned to keep him for the summer to show visitors and then tag him and release him back into the sea," said Mike.

"Sadly, that was not to be. He suffered too much stress before he came to us." o Lucky is pictured shortly after arriving at his new home at Silent World.

PICTURE: Western Telegraph (WTNO1186H03).