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A catch straight out of the deep blue sea
A rare event is said to happen once in a blue moon. But a blue moon has nothing on a blue lobster.
Canadian lobster boat captain Bobby Stoddard said he and his crew were hauling in their lobster traps one day in early May when one of the men called out, "Hey, we got a pretty one in this trap!"
"I turned around and said, 'Holy smoke!' " said Stoddard, 51, of Clarks Harbour, Nova Scotia.
In the trap with three other, ordinary greenish-brown lobsters was a remarkably bright blue one, the first lobster of that hue Stoddard had seen in his 33 years of fishing for a living.
"This is the only one that I've ever seen," he told CNN. "And my dad has been a lobsterman of about 55 years, and he caught one about 45 years ago, but hadn't seen one since."
Bobby Stoddard, lobster hunter
Stoddard captains one lobster boat, his father another, and his three brothers work with them. On a good day, they haul in about 3,000 of the crustaceans, he said. Multiply that times 33 seasons, and that's a lot of lobsters. But only one blue one.
According to the University of Maine Lobster Institute, blue lobsters are a one-in-2-million phenomenon. A genetic variation causes the lobster to produce an excessive amount of a particular protein that gives it that azure aspect.
Stoddard offered his find (a male, by the way) to a nearby ocean research institute, but "they didn't seem too interested," he said.
His girlfriend pushed him to offer it for sale for on the classified-ad site Kajiji.com, he said. Having no idea what the market for a 1.5-pound blue lobster might be, he priced it at $200.
"I wanted to put a number high enough on it so nobody would be interested in it," Stoddard confessed.
However, he said he started to get some "weird" phone calls and e-mails scolding him for trying to sell such a rare creature, so he canceled the ad.
"I'm kind of a shy guy," he said. "When things get controversial, I kind of go hide. This is what I do for a living; I catch lobsters and sell them. I'm just trying to do the right thing. I thought, 'I just don't need this hassle.' "
For now, the cerulean crustacean is residing comfortably in a nice, cold holding tank at Stoddard's business, feeding on bits of fish and mollusks as normal. A massive aquarium is under construction near the CN Tower in Toronto, but Stoddard hasn't decided whether to offer his specimen for display there.
"I don't know what the best thing is to do," he said. "It probably belongs back in the ocean, but I'd like for as many people as possible to see it."
Related stories:
Blue lobsters aren't the only rare ones - what about calico lobsters?
And then of course, there are always really, really big lobsters as well.
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Dude sell your blue lobster on ebay to the highest bidder. Your a fisherman, selling lobster is what you do. Don't worry about the bleeding hearts.
"you're"
Eat it raw...sushi style, and you too will have that rare special protein in you. Maybe it's got some special powers or something and you could end up with special powers and shtick, like spiderman or something, you could be blue lobster man...the superhero
lol
This guy seems like a good guy. In the business of catching and selling lobsters. The aquarium should just give him the 200 bucks and call it a day. If it is truly that rare then having one in the aquarium would seem to be a no-brainer. We (and the lobster) should be glad he didn't just boil it and eat it like many would.
Best suggestion I've seen here. I would like to show such a thing to my kids. I'd pay an extra buck to look at it in an aquarium.
Return it where it belongs, to the ocean
He doesn't know what to do with it? Pass the melted butter, I'll show him.
Killing a baby blue lobster seems to be horrendous to some? How about the innocent slaughter of 1.4 million innocent babies in America. There is a holocaust raging against the unborn in our country, but hey, who cares? Baby blue lobsters are in peril!
Exactly. Bleeding heart liberals care more about a stupid blue lobster than human babies.
Last I checked, baby humans weren't rare.
Put it in a public aquarium for others to enjoy would be my opinion
Mate it with a zebra.
It's probably a sacred Chinese cure for blue balls, or something stupid like that. The Chinks are lining up.
Breed it and make a fortune.
I wonder what color it would be when cooked? Would it turn a more vibrant blue? like a neon sign blue? I think he'll venetually put it into the ocean, but he wants to be bale to share its niftiness with the world.
Boil it, hollow it out, put wheels on it and a motor to make it radio controlled. Then paint an 'S' on its back and watch that S car go.
I'm pretty sure it would need to be a snail for that, but that is a good joke.
one
in two million? =aquarium and fk the rednecks
Take some photos and let the poor creature go!
What makes this one any more special than the million others they've caught? Why does it deserve to live and they don't? And honestly, it'd have a much cozier life in a nice aquarium than in the ocean, where it's likely to end up as an afternoon snack.
used to have one as a pet, bought it from walmart fish section, didnt think it was that rare. interesting
You are overestimating the intelligence of lobsters. They are roughly as smart as a grasshopper. Its not so much a poor creature as it is a plant that moves.