Man, you're OLD

I read this article today, about a 140-year-old lobster being released from an upscale NYC eatery out of sheer respect for his age and an ambiguous fear of PETA. While I disagree that by releasing him you are allowing him to live the remainder of his days in peace (being eaten alive by a larger, fiercer predator is not in any way peaceful, as far as I can tell), I thought it was really... sweet. It's always a shame to be That Guy who kills off something that is way older than any of us can even imagine being, something that has seen the turns of two centuries and two world wars, that has seen tin cans tied to strings become cell phones, and Morse Code become AOL instant messaging. I certainly hope that that guy, probably a fat white American executive with no scruples, who would have asked for the world's only known 140-year-old lobster to be served with low-fat margarine instead of butter would at least feel a little dirty.

It was also reminiscent of this story I read while ago about a bowhead whale caught off the coast of Alaska (legally, by Alaskans with traditional use rights), and as they were butchering him (her?), they found a harpoon tip lodged in its shoulder. It had been shot with it some time ago, then escaped and recovered. Turns out, that some time ago was AT LEAST 115 years ago, based on the age and design of the spear, an exploding lance from the late 1800s. Assuming that the whale was an adult at the time, and taking into account the time it takes for a whale to age.... that animal could have been pushing 150 years old. Scientists have long held that the bowhead whale has one of the longest life-spans of any mammal, and this just kinda made me sit in awe. I mean, that's pretty d*&n old.

And all this seems like small potatoes when you consider that bristlecone pines in Great Basin National Park could be pushing 6000 years old, and are are still going strong.