Big Dee-Dee, a 10-kilogram lobster that was caught in the Bay of Fundy, will be transferred to a coastal marine centre.

It's bittersweet news for Big Dee-Dee, a 10-kilogram lobster, as the creature has avoided a butter bath on a dinner plate, but won't be heading back to the ocean anytime soon after all.

Instead, Big Dee-Dee is destined for a coastal New Brunswick marine facility.

Since July 10, the giant crustacean has been held in a lobster tank at a Shediac, N.B., fish market called Big Fish, where owner Denis Breau decided to put the lobster up for auction.

A cross-country bidding war erupted, with an offer of $5,000 being put in from an Ontario organization that wanted to have the lobster for a banquet.

But on Friday, Breau agreed to accept $3,000 from Vancouver resident Laura-Leah Shaw and two anonymous Ontario donors who wanted to release the giant back into the Bay of Fundy between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Breau said on Sunday that he's decided he'll instead be giving the lobster to the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews.

"I thought about it for quite a few hours but I thought it's best for business to do it like this," Breau said. "No bitter feelings."

Breau said he wasn't sure that after being held in the tank Dee-Dee would survive a release back into the Bay of Fundy where he was originally caught.

The change of temperature may have been too much for the old lobster, he said.

The creature will be placed in one of the marine centre's aquariums and monitored closely to see how it adjusts to captivity, said Fred Whoriskey, spokesman for the centre.

"Let's face it, as we all get older we get more crotchety and less adaptable under circumstances and it may be that he or she is too fixed in her ways," Whoriskey said.

Mixed feelings

If Dee-Dee doesn't adjust to being held in the new tank, the marine centre will look at ways to release it back in the Bay of Fundy and increase the chances of survival.

Shaw said she has mixed feelings on the news the lobster won't be returned to the ocean immediately.

"I'll be sad if he doesn't end up in the ocean; however, I'm ever so grateful if in fact he stays out of the cook pot and also by the owner not profiting off this lobster," she told CBC News.

Shaw said she hopes the attention generated by Dee-Dee will have legislators think about putting maximum size limits on lobster to protect the older creatures from harvesting.

"Now if there isn't a market for them, great," Shaw said. "They can be down on the ocean floor where they belong."

Shaw, a vegetarian, said she's been involved with animal rights causes for 20 years.

Breau said he has never encountered animal rights activists before in Shediac, a town known as the lobster capital of the world.

"We sell a thousand pounds a day of lobster, but no one ever bugged us before to put lobster back in the water," Breau said.

With files from the Canadian Press