Just before we reached the end of our hike, we came across a local fisherman who had just been out catching lobster. He had seven of them, four of which were egg-bearing females.

It would be an understatement to say we were a little put off by this. We told our guide that we were not interested because the females had eggs and we would prefer to have them back in the sea. We mentioned to our hiking partner that this would not be legal in the states. Our guide said to us that they eggs would not hatch because the harvest season was open (it had just recently opened March 1^st). We know this is not how it works; Mother Nature does not follow man’s hunting laws. We shared this knowledge with the group. Trying not to make too much of a deal out of it, we expressed that we were not interested in purchasing the lobsters. The local then began to tear all the eggs from the underside of the lobsters. We asked what he was doing and learned that in the Xhosa culture it’s believed the eggs are a bit of an aphrodisiac for animals and is therefore added to chicken and goat feed in order to create more livestock. They are really going to spoil over 5,000 lobster eggs for a few extra horny goats. We were appalled.

Our hiking companion and guide were still interested though and purchased all of them for 100 Rand. We politely declined based on the principle of taking the eggs from a resource that is so tightly regulated in our home waters. It was a very interesting and a little tough to see.