Rare lobster turns out to be quite a catch

By Tina Comeau

Sou'Wester

NovaNewsNow.com

Lobsters have been selling for around the $7-a-pound mark but one that Edward Pothier of Concession, Digby County, N.S. pulled up in a trap on Tuesday is priceless as far as he’s concerned.

The former Wedgeport, Yarmouth County, N.S. resident – who was fishing in his vessel Le Par-en-Bas about two-and-a-half miles off of Saulnierville on Jan. 8 – hauled up a two-toned lobster. It’s the normal color of a lobster on one side and bright orange on the other. The line dividing the two colors down the middle of the carapace and tail is so straight you’d swear a ruler was used.

Even the two antennas protruding from the lobster are different colors.

In some circles its said the odds of catching such a lobster are one in 50 or 100 million. This lobster is all female, whereas other two-toned lobsters have both male and female sex organs.

Pothier says there was a lot of excitement on board his vessel when the lobster was caught. His son Jason was the first one who spotted it in the trap.

“We’re always waiting to see what’s in the trap. You never know what’s going to be in there,” Pothier says. “Everybody was excited, it was the highlight of our day.”

Asked what the rest of the catches were like that day, Pothier – admittedly a novice when it comes to being interviewed by the media – says, “Well, it wasn’t a very good day. The highlight was this lobster.”

His wife Nora, laughing, quickly jumps in on the interview, “No, you’re supposed to say the lobsters were rare and we got a rare lobster.”

Because the lobster was undersized – it only weighs about 0.8 pounds – Pothier had to seek permission from DFO to bring it ashore. It’s home for the next couple of days has been the pound belonging to Clear Skies Fisheries in Comeaville, which is the buyer Pothier sells his lobsters too.

Since landing the two-colored lobster the Pothiers have been very busy. On Friday they are driving the lobster – which they’ve named Jay – to Halifax, N.S. because they are lending it to the Bedford Institute of Oceanography where scientists can conduct research on it.

Other areas have also expressed interest in the lobster but Edward Pothier wants to give it to the Bedford Institute of Oceanography because he carries out scientific projects for them onboard his fishing vessel.

But before leaving the area the Pothiers have been taking lots of pictures of the lobster and sharing the lobster with others. For instance it paid a visit to Clarence’s Shopping Mart in Saulnierville.

“People are fascinated by it,” Edward Pothier says.

Nora Pothier has even been in contact with Ripley’s Believe It Or Not in Florida. Although Ripley’s has had five two-coloured lobsters in its collection, the last one it chronicled died 51 years ago so they’re interested in this one.

“They might do up a cartoon of it, we would be number six in their data base,” says Mrs. Pothier.

Robert Bayer, a professor at the lobster institute at the University of Maine is also quite interested in this catch. He says it’s unheard of for such a lobster to be all female, and adds he’s even more interested in knowing what the outcome would be if the lobster breeds.

The color of a lobster carapace is made up of a basic red pigment, which is associated to other pigments like blue and yellow. Generally lobsters are brownish black (sometimes brown-green or brown-blue, according to DFO). However it isn’t totally unheard of for lobsters to be blue, yellow or even albino. Landing a blue lobster is much more common than a two-colored one however, since the odds of catching a blue lobster are one in two million. There have already been a few blue lobsters landed in southwestern Nova Scotia since the season opened in late November, which if nothing else is indicative of the number of lobsters landed in this region.

Pothier himself has also caught several yellow lobsters in the past.

He says he’s loaning this two-colored one to the Bedford Institute of Oceanography for the lobster’s lifespan.

“If she dies, we’d like to have the specimen back so we can mount it,” he explains, saying it’s never occurred to him to eat the lobster.

“Not this one,” he says laughing, “but we did eat the yellow ones.”

Which, incidentally, turn red when cooked.