You could say Bubba has gotten into some hot water, but maybe it's not as bad as it sounds, considering he's a lobster.

	Keith Srakocic, Associated Press Bubba in a tank beside your average 1 1/2-pound lobster at Wholey's yesterday. Click photo for larger image.

His tale goes like this:

The crusty crustacean -- billed as 100 years old and weighing a whopping 23 pounds -- was caught in the Atlantic Ocean and wound up Thursday in the tank at Robert Wholey & Co., the Strip District seafood purveyor. This residence looked to be temporary, lasting only until somebody invited him to dinner.

The behemoth caused quite a splash, but not every shopper wanted to eat him. One woman offered to pay $500 -- roughly $150 more than he'd fetch at the going price per pound -- for Bubba's release to an aquarium.

The publicity, including a TV news report, made some animal lovers boiling mad, and so from across the country they called and e-mailed the Norfolk, Va. headquarters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Karin Robertson, who manages the group's Fish Empathy Project, took up Bubba's claws. On Monday, she faxed a letter to CEO Robert Wholey III asking that Bubba "be released back into his ocean home," where he'd lived since before women could vote.

"It would be a tragedy to end his long life by tormenting him in a pot of boiling water," she wrote, "or by shoving him into a zoo aquarium to be gawked at in a tiny enclosure until he dies."

As of yesterday, Bubba looked to be spared the first fate but not the second.

Robert Wholey -- as he had initially, and sympathetically, told PETA -- decided to donate the lobster to the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium.

	Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Randy Goodlett, left, of Wholey's, assists Jennifer Nero and Jennifer Dancico of the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium in transferring Bubba from the store to the Zoomobile for the slow ride to a new temporary home. Click photo for larger image.

Around 3:30 p.m., four zoo staffers arrived and placed Bubba in a three-foot-deep plastic bucket with just enough salt water to cover him. They drove the Zoomobile, a Saturn station wagon, at a crawl toward Highland Park to minimize sloshing.

Aquarist Jennifer Nero lifted the bucket's wooden lid every few minutes to check on him. Zoo spokeswoman Connie George, who was riding along, said Nero got attached to Bubba. Not literally, she added.

"He just stuck his head out of the water and is looking around," George said. "He'll be happy to get into a tank where he can see what he's doing."

Bubba was transferred to a larger tank at the same salinity and temperature of his Wholey's tank and the rubber bands were removed from his 12-inch- and 15-inch-long claws.

He's not the only one who may be a bit confused about all this.

Bubba is old, but he's probably not a centenarian. Aquarium curator Allan Marshall discussed him with other specialists at a conference he's attending in Virginia, and the consensus was that Bubba is 30 to 40 years old.

Randy Goodlett, a marine biologist who cared for Bubba and all of Wholey's live stock, agreed.

It's not even certain that Bubba is male. George said there is a way to tell, but the lobster hadn't yet been examined.

Bubba's time in Pittsburgh still looks to be brief. The aquarium doesn't have other lobsters and lacks a habitat to sustain Bubba for public display. He will be quarantined for at least a week, and if he stays healthy, he will be flown to a Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum.

"They're opening a new aquarium in Canada and I think that's where he's going," George said.

Last night, PETA's Robertson said she was disappointed that Bubba wasn't going to be returned to the wild. "An aquarium is not an approximation of the freedom he's been able to experience. ... It really is just ridiculous to think that Bubba is better off being displayed as a sideshow freak."

She said she plans to contact the Pittsburgh aquarium today to request a release to the wild, something PETA regularly does with lobsters of all sizes. "I'm hoping they would have some sympathy for his extreme age."

And so continues the controversy, which included an offer from Wholey's customers of a different bent who called themselves "People For Eating Tasty Animals."

For his part, Wholey said of Bubba, "I wish, wherever he does go, that he lives another hundred years."