Meet Crush, the rare orange lobster diverted from Pueblo's plate to Denver Aquarium : The Prowers Journal

A longtime employee, a dishwasher and biscuit chef at a Red Lobster restaurant in Pueblo, spotted the bright orange lobster while unpacking a shipment and alerted restaurant managers.

This photo provided by the Denver Downtown Aquarium shows Crush, a rare orange lobster, being sent to the aquarium on Wednesday, July 17, 2024. Crush is named after the Denver Broncos’ Orange Crush defense from 1976-86. (Meghan Bailey/Denver Downtown Aquarium via AP)

By Amy Beth Hanson, The Associated Press

Denver’s downtown aquarium has a new resident: a rare orange lobster that was rescued from a shipment of shellfish delivered to a Red Lobster restaurant in Pueblo, Colorado.

A longtime employee, a diver and biscuit chef, spotted the bright orange lobster while unpacking a shipment last Friday and alerted restaurant managers, aquarium officials said. The staff named it Crush in honor of the Denver Broncos’ legendary Orange Crush defense from 1976 to 1986.

“I and many of my team members were born and raised Denver Broncos fans. As soon as we saw that orange, we knew Crush would be a great representative,” said Kendra Kastendieck, the restaurant’s general manager. “And we all want our defensive line to be that good again.”

When the Pueblo Zoo couldn’t accommodate Crush, Kastendieck called the downtown aquarium, which she said was immediately interested.

Kastendieck packed Crush with ice packs in a plastic foam container and delivered him to the aquarium on Wednesday.

“As soon as they acclimated him to his quarantine tank at the Denver Aquarium, he was very active right off the bat and really exploring his little space,” Kastendieck said Thursday.

Staff had set up a tank with a new-generation Denver Broncos helmet on top and an old-generation helmet sitting inside the tank “so he could actually climb in and play around,” she said.

Crush will be examined by a veterinarian and after 30 days of quarantine, he will be placed in the “Lurks” exhibit, which houses other cold-water species from the North Atlantic Ocean, aquarium staff said.

“We are thrilled to be able to share this very rare and extraordinary animal with the Colorado community and visitors,” Ryan Herman, general curator of the Denver Downtown Aquarium, said in a statement.

The Crush fish was shipped to the Pueblo restaurant from a Tennessee supplier. It was caught off the coast of Canada, Kastendieck said, but she could not confirm which coast it was from.

Genetic mutations can produce orange, blue and yellow lobsters. The Downtown Aquarium once had an orange lobster.

The downtown aquarium is home to more than 700 species of fish as well as a stingray reef and three Sumatran tigers.

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Meet Crush, the rare orange lobster diverted from Pueblo’s plate to Denver Aquarium : The Prowers Journal

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