Noel Edmonds has found a new cause: lobster liberation.
It has not landed the way he hoped.
The former Deal or No Deal host and his wife Liz bought live lobsters from a farm shop tank on the Isle of Man, carried them to Peel Harbour and filmed themselves setting the animals loose.
The clip went on Instagram. The backlash arrived shortly after.
A tank, a harbour and a passing seal
Edmonds narrated the release with the easy confidence of a man performing an obvious good deed.
“All right, this is one of those more bizarre things that happens with us,” he told viewers.
“We were at a place where there were some lobsters in a tank, and we’re a little bit uncomfortable about the lobsters and tanks.
So we bought the lobsters, and now Liz is going to release them.”
Then, as the crustaceans went in: “Nice clear water in Peel Harbour.
There they go. And we know this is nice fresh water because a moment ago a seal went past. Wonderful place.”
The farm shop reconsiders
Matt Harrison, who owns the shop, has since moved the lobster tank to a less prominent spot and is weighing up whether to remove it entirely.
“I’m sensitive to people’s feelings,” he said.
“But the vast majority of people want us to keep it and for us to keep supporting local businesses, which is the whole point of the shop.”
The lobsters, he explained, were caught near Peel by a young local shellfish fisherman he wanted to back.
The tank is charcoal-filtered, maintained weekly and kept at salinity levels matching the surrounding sea, with the water held between 7.1C and 7.4C.
Fresh deliveries arrive every week or two and the animals rotate through, rarely spending more than a fortnight inside.
“There’s still lobsters in there; they’re really healthy,” Harrison added.
“We’re just going to see what happens. But customers will be able to buy it in plenty of other places along the Peel seafront.”
‘They’ve basically killed them’
Not everyone watched the video and saw a rescue.
One commenter, identifying as a marine biologist, called it a “lovely sentiment” before warning that releasing captive lobsters risks disease transfer and genetic mixing with native populations, that hefty fines can apply, and that “restaurants will order more lobsters and sell them knowing people will release them”.
Another was blunter: “They didn’t have a chance the moment he removed them from tank.”
A third went further. “They’ve basically killed them. Look it up. You can’t release tanked lobsters into the sea for various reasons.”
Nobody has verified any of the claims about the lobsters’ fate.
Why It Matters
The release only became a story because the couple filmed it.
That is the trade every creator makes when compassion becomes content: post the good deed and the comment section turns into peer review.
Animal rescue footage remains one of the most reliable engagement engines on any platform, and one of the quickest to curdle the moment someone with credentials shows up.
One commenter also spotted the incentive problem baked in. If buying lobsters to free them becomes content, shops just order more lobsters.
The gesture feeds the thing it objects to.
Edmonds joins a growing list of public figures discovering that audiences now fact-check kindness as ruthlessly as they fact-check everything else, with feel-good rescue content facing sharper scrutiny than it did even a couple of years ago.
Harrison still hasn’t decided the tank’s future.
The lobsters’ whereabouts remain unknown.
Depending on which commenter you believe, that’s either freedom or the quiet end of the story.
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