The Great Lobster Caper

Thanks to Wince and Nod for pointing me to this Vin Suprynowicz column from the Las Vegas Review Journal. The story delineates how a 59-year-old rancher, Bob Eddy, got fed up with the federal and state regulations imposed upon cattle ranching and decided to farm Australian freshwater lobster. Finding he could sell the lobsters for $14 a pound, the Desert Lobster Farm was born,

. . . marked with those prominent 'Lobster Crossing' signs along U.S. 95 -- where the Eddys now raise half a million blue and red Australian freshwater lobsters, in tubs full of 80-degree water pumped from nearby hot springs.

Eddy sells his entire crop -- fresh and ready to boil -- to travelers driving by on the road from Las Vegas to Reno (4,700 cars a day) ... though he has plans to eventually open a lobster restaurant in Mina, a town of about 100 that's been moribund since the mine shut down. "With the beef," he says, "you might get $1 a pound versus $14 for the lobster. That's the economics. ... I got rid of the cows."

Everything was fine until, you guessed it, the regulators came in.

The Nevada Division of Wildlife boys roared in Thursday -- 10 armed game wardens, two of the plainclothes guys in black shoes and black sunglasses from the "Nevada Division of Investigation," assigned to take care of any troublesome neighbors, and two state biologists assigned to seize and destroy all of Bob Eddy's crawfish.

Yes, Bob Eddy had violated his lobster farming permit requirements and they shut him down. It appears he won't be compensated for his loss. Click on the link for the rest of the story, a fine example of how the government not only inhibits, but also prevents, free enterprise.