Hard-hearted bureaucrats in Maine have denied PETA’s request to erect a beautiful roadside tombstone memorializing thousands of innocent lobsters who lost their lives in a truck crash earlier this month.

The state’s Department of Transportation informed People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals on Thursday that the scene of the Aug. 22 crash falls along a “Controlled-Access Highway,” which means all forms of signage are prohibited. The brave lobsters are now at risk of being lost to history, destined to fade into the proverbial mist of time, gone but also forgotten amid the fast pace of modern life.