Blue Lobster Caught By Fisherman In Northern Ireland, He Releases It Back To Sea

Blue Lobster Caught By Fisherman In Northern Ireland, An Estimated 1 In 2 Million Chance

Lobster is a luxury meal for Singaporeans of modest means, with most of us settling for lobster rolls.

If you think a plain old red lobster is expensive, though, how much do think a blue lobster would cost?

A fisherman could have found that out when he caught a rare blue lobster off the coast of Northern Ireland.

He released it back into the sea, however — so it’s still swimming around somewhere.

Blue lobster caught in Northern Ireland on 3 Feb

In a Facebook post on 3 Feb, Northern Ireland seafood wholesaler Seafresh said a rare blue lobster was caught on board their boat Huntress.

It was found by Mr Stuart Brown, who runs the company.

From the photos they shared, the crustacean has a striking blue shell, very different from normal lobsters that are usually red or orange.

Its underside, however, was white with just a few streaks of blue at the edges.

‘Catch of a lifetime’ found in Belfast Lough

Mr Brown, 28, described it as the “catch of a lifetime”.

He told the Belfast Telegraph that he was fishing in Belfast Lough, a sea inlet off the coast of Northern Ireland, in about 50 to 60 feet (15-18m) of water.

When one of the lobster pots came up, he couldn’t believe his eyes, saying,

I slid the pot down to the crew man who lifted it out and he made a comment: ‘That’s very blue.’

Mr Brown replied that it was “too blue”, and looked up Google to see how rare it was.

He found out that there was a one in two million chance of catching it.

Lobsters turn blue due to genetic abnormality

Indeed, only one blue lobster in about two million lobsters can be found in the wild, according to the New England Aquarium.

Blue lobsters are typically European lobsters with the scientific name of homarus gammarus, and are that way due to a genetic abnormality that overproduces a certain protein, according to All That’s Interesting.

Mr Brown said this was the first time he’d seen one, and older fishermen he asked said they’d never seen one. However, catching one isn’t unheard of.

In 2020, staff at a Red Lobster in the United States (US) caught a blue lobster and donated it to the zoo.

A father and son in Maine, US caught another blue lobster in August 2022. They decided to display it at their restaurant before throwing it back in two weeks.

Fisherman released blue lobster back into sea

As for Mr Brown, he released his blue lobster back into the sea.

But not without taking a few photos of it, of course.

He returned it because the lobster was too small — it was just below the size of crustaceans that the authorities allow fishermen to keep, he said.

He hoped that other people who might catch it would do the same.

Despite letting the catch of a lifetime go, it’s certain that Mr Brown, who has been fishing since the age of 11, will treasure its memory for life.

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Featured image adapted from Seafresh on Facebook.