The Maine Department of Transportation (DOT) has denied a request by an animal rights group to erect a tombstone on Route 1 in Brunswick where several thousand lobsters died in a truck crash last week.
Ted Talbot, a spokesperson from DOT, says that the memorial sought by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) would create a safety issue on the controlled access highway.
"Which means, a lot of heavy traffic — cars and trucks at very high speeds," Talbot says. "There are no signs allowed there, no roadside memorials from anybody. They want a tombstone, a granite tombstone which we would consider that to be a deadly fixed object on the roadside, and for safety reasons, obviously, we wouldn't allow that either."
In its request earlier this week, PETA said the tombstone would have been inscribed with a message telling drivers to "try vegan and help prevent lobsters from future suffering."