One lucky lobster caught over the weekend was rescued from the dinner table for looking more like a Halloween decoration. A Portland, Maine, vessel brought in an unusual calico lobster Sunday. The lobster, with an orange and yellow shell with black spots spread randomly, weighed more than 3 pounds. Sam Parisi, of Pier 7, a lobster buying company on Commercial Street, said the company’s owner, John Sullivan, asked that the lobster be tagged and released. “He’ll be tagged so if he’s caught again, he’ll be released,” Parisi said. “One of our lobster boats is going to take it offshore and release it.” Sullivan did not return a phone message to his Boston office seeking comment. The lobster is a 31/2-pound male, and Parisi estimated it to be about 12 years old. The Theresa Marie IV, a 90-foot dragger owned by Jim Odlin of Portland, landed the lobster Sunday afternoon with about 1,500 others. Parisi said he saw a similar shell about 12 years ago on a lobster that weighed about 1 pound.
Robert Glenn, a senior marine biologist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries in New Bedford, said he sent employees to Gloucester to photograph, measure and tag the creature. “I can’t put numbers on it, but it’s extremely rare,” he said. Lobsters pulled from the sea are typically dark, sometimes with an orange tint. They do not turn bright red until cooked. Occasionally, said William Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobster men’s Association, lobsters will show up with blue, yellow or orange shells, but calicos are “pretty rare.” Most rare are albino lobsters, which are all white and do not turn red when boiled. Glenn said lobsters’ shells are often one color, or sometimes bicolored.
Many times lobster men will call an aquarium and donate unusual lobsters, but whether they are taken depends on the color of the shell and how much space the aquarium has in its tanks. “Sometimes businesses will try to keep them going in a (tank) to show off on display,” Adler said. “But that’s good, if they’re going to tag it and put it back out there.” A tagged lobster released into the sea provides information to scientists about the migration patterns of lobsters, Glenn said. Each tag has a code and telephone number. If a lobsterman catches a tagged lobster, usually they call the phone number and report where and when it was caught. “It’s the primary tool we use to learn migratory patterns of lobsters over the season,” Glenn said. Parisi said he plans to have a vessel take the lobster out today and drop it in the Georges Bank area. “He was caught in deep water, probably 500 to 600 feet,” Parisi said. “That’s where they go in the winter time because the water is warmer.” At least one lobster man was not impressed. Anthony Ciarmetaro, owner of Captain Vince, said he has seen several calicos, several blue lobsters and several bright red ones and would tell his men to throw them in the tank with the rest. “It’s not a major deal, he said. “It’s like the golden haddock. Right now it’s worth a lot more sold to somebody.”