Blue lobster: Belfast Lough fisherman lands rare crustacean

A fisherman has described landing a rare blue lobster in Belfast Lough as the catch of a lifetime.

Stuart Brown, 28, from Bangor, County Down said the discovery of the colourful crustacean had come as "a surprise to everybody".

It was caught in a pot that had been in the water close to Blackhead Lighthouse on the northern shores of the lough.

Mr Brown released the lobster after taking pictures of it as it was just below the allowable size to keep.

"It's still out in the lough somewhere, swimming about as happy as can be. Hopefully if someone else does catch it, they'll return it as well."

The fisherman said his boat was in 15-18m (50-60ft) of water when he pulled the pot up.

"I slid the pot down to the crew man who lifted it out and he made a comment: 'That's very blue'," he said.

"I looked at him and said: 'Yeah, no problem.' But then I did look at it again and said: 'That's too blue.'

"You would get lobsters out there that don't look normal, they'd be a bit browner or redder, just something different with them, but nothing that extreme.

"I looked up Google to see how rare it was, and it was one-in-two million chance of catching it," he told the Press Association,

Mr Brown, who has been fishing since the age of 11, is a shareholder in a County Down seafood wholesaling business.

He said the blue lobster has now been added to the list of "weird and wonderful things" he has seen while out at sea.

The majority of lobsters are a dark brown colour, but they can also come in other strange shades including orange, red and yellow.

Unusual colourations are due to abnormal genetics, say scientists.

A genetic difference can causes some lobsters to produce more of a certain protein than others.

Blue lobsters are believed to be so rare that some marine biologists estimate the chance of catching one is at about one-in-two-million.

There have been reports of similar finds elsewhere in the UK, but Mr Brown said this was the first discovery he'd ever heard of.

"I've never seen one. Other fishermen I've spoken to, who are a lot older than me, they said the same, that they haven't seen any ever," he added.

"So it's a surprise to everybody it's came in on the east coast.

"You just never know what's going to come up."