When Canadian fisherman Nathan Crawford caught a 17-pound lobster in the Bay of Fundy, he couldn’t wait to get his claws on a camera. Crustaceans of this size are rare, and Nathan wanted photos to show off on social media.
While Nathan was proudly posing with his catch, his wife, Christine, had the idea to incorporate their 6-month-old son Ace, into the shoot.
“We decided to sit Ace down on the lobster to give our friends a sense of how huge it was,” Christine told TODAY Parents. The baby didn’t flinch.
“Ace was touching the tail and laughing,” Christine said. “You could tell he was thinking, ‘What is this thing?’ He was really curious."
After a local paper ran the pictures, Christine noticed some ugly comments on Facebook. “A few people said we’re cruel and that we put our child at risk,” she told TODAY Parents. “But we would never put Ace in any kind of danger. We knew exactly what we were doing."
Christine noted that the shellfish — they named him “Lester the Lobster” — had elastic bands on his claws to protect from painful nips and that Nathan never left Ace’s side.
"We're so excited to show Ace the photos when he's older," Christine told TODAY Parents. "He'll think it's cool that his dad caught a lobster that was bigger than him!"
According to the Guinness World Records, the largest lobster was caught off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada in 1977 and weighed 44 pounds, 6 ounces.