Marine biologist shares why she returned a restaurant crustacean to the sea

Marine biologist Emma Smart was sentenced for criminal damage last week, after releasing a lobster from a seafood restaurant back in April 2025. Amidst accusations that the environmental activist harmed animals displayed for public education, Smart shares what motivated her to intervene and questions whether the response of the police, courts and media were proportionate.

‘Animal rights activist killed my crayfish‘. ‘Activist threw restaurant’s educational lobster into the sea‘. ‘Woman storms posh restaurant to steal lobster‘. These were amongst the bizarre headlines I read this weekend. Unmistakable in the grainy CCTV images within each article was the rainbow jumper-wearing perpetrator of this unusual, alleged crime. She was a climate activist who I know cares deeply for people and animals alike. So I wanted to find out what happened, why she did it, and whether those headlines are a load of codswallop.

‘Why I liberated the lobster’

Emma Smart knows a lot about aquatic animals — she even has a species of fish named after her. At the centre of this story is the spiny lobster (Palinurus elephas), a largely nocturnal, often solitary sea creature classified as vulnerable to extinction. In the wild, they’d spend almost all of their time in total darkness, preferring to hide under boulders or in cracks in the rock.

Sharing something of her own distress seeing the crustaceans on display — apparently to educate children — at the harbourside restaurant, Smart describes the lobster’s artificial habitat: 

A bare, shallow tank under the bright fluorescent lights of a fishmongers hall amidst the constant clatter of a restaurant is undoubtedly an incredibly distressing environment for spiny lobsters. There was no cave or refuge for them, which is a fundamental necessity for this species to have.

She acknowledges that her decision to take a lobster from the tank was impulsive, but stresses that it was motivated by deep concern for the animals’ welfare. She emphasised how carefully she placed the animal in the harbour, and that the judge in court recognised this. This jars with widely publicised but unsubstantiated claims from the restaurant’s owner: Smart “threw” the lobster “like a cricket ball”, and it would have likely died of shock upon entering the sea.

Smart refutes this, saying that she has no reason to believe that it couldn’t be “living its best natural lobster life” back where it was caught roughly 10 miles down the coast.

A house raid, arrest and year of criminal prosecution

Having walked away from the scene of the lobster release, Smart describes how, six weeks later:

Three police vehicles arrived at my home. Four officers raided the house, searching for ‘critical evidence’ – the rainbow jumper.

The restaurant owner shared publicly that he told the police and prosecution service that he wanted the “book thrown” at Smart, and it seems it was. She continues:

I was arrested, strip-searched, held in custody and charged with 5 serious offences, including an assault charge so absurd to the custody sergeant he admitted it had ‘come from above’.

One year later, she pled guilty to the less serious charge of criminal damage to the restaurant owner’s lobster, worth £25-50 by his estimation. Hearing her reasons for deciding, reluctantly, to do this, I’m left asking myself where the greatest damage, criminal or otherwise, has been caused here.

When UK court backlogs are worse than ever, is it responsible or proportionate to drag nonviolent activists through long, stressful, costly crown court trials? Smart puts it more bluntly: 

While victims of actual violence face record waiting times for their day in court, the state somehow found the capacity to treat a wealthy man’s display piece as a matter of national importance.

Are we the lobsters, boiling alive?

Throughout the telling of the ‘educational lobster’ tale in court and in public, a restaurant that turns crustaceans into croquettes is suggested to be a better advocate for marine life than the biologist who felt compelled to transport an animal from a small, exposed tank back into the sea.

To me, this feels slightly absurd, but there is a bigger, more dangerous absurdity here too. From Smart’s perspective:

The restaurant in this case sits on Weymouth harbour, a location at (current) sea level. It is increasingly vulnerable to the tidal surges of climate breakdown. There is a profound irony in an influential businessman spending a year of his time and energy persecuting a climate activist while the sea itself prepares to reclaim his fancy dining room.

As our polluted planet heats and as wild animal populations plummet, our food supplies, livelihoods and safety hang in the balance. So when we debate whether liberating lobsters is misguided or heroic, or how robustly it should be punished, we can lose sight of the biggest threats to crustaceans, to restaurants and to every one of us.

Featured image provided via author