Hardwick Biology Teacher Finds Rare Lobster
HARDWICK — The odds of winning $1 million on a $30 scratch ticket are far better
HARDWICK — The odds of winning $1 million on a $30 scratch ticket are far better than the odds of hand-catching a rare calico lobster in Massachusetts, so one might say Andrew Ward is a big winner — except that he didn't keep the prize.
On Saturday he and a group of friends were, as they often are on weekends, diving. Sometimes they look for lobster, but that day they were gathering scallops off the coast of Marblehead.
"There were a lot of lobsters running around," Mr. Ward said, and while he wasn't focused on the tasty crustaceans, he couldn't miss the brightly colored lobster with a mottled shell that stood out like a sore thumb as it wandered in the open on the ocean floor.
"It looked like a lobster that was dressed up for Halloween," he said.
He caught it and realized it was too small to keep, but having never seen one in more than a decade of diving, he brought it to the surface for a quick photograph and to determine its gender — it was a female. Then he put it back.
At home he began looking up rare lobsters and learned that the one he'd caught was a calico — as unusual as a blue lobster.
A biology teacher at Eagle Hill School in Hardwick, he used the experience as a lesson for his students as they discussed genetics and genetic morphs and how genes work. They discussed why it's so rare to see such a lobster: because its party colors make it much more visible to predators such as the cod. And why this one may have survived: because over-fishing has reduced the number of cod off Massachusetts, increasing the mutant lobster's odds.
He estimated the lobster to be a year or two old and approaching a size when it's too big for a predator to eat, though she "could fit into the mouth of a really big cod," he said.
Mr. Ward also reached out to a friend at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife, who put him in touch with Robert Glenn, the chief marine fisheries biologist for the Invertebrate Fisheries Program at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
Mr. Glenn, via email, confirmed that the lobster is rare, estimating that of about 9.2 million lobsters landed annually in Massachusetts, he gets just 1 or 2 reports of calico lobsters, though exact odds would be touch to calculate.
"If you consider that I likely do not get reports on all that are caught ... I can say with confidence that is a 1-in-1-million to 1-in-3-million type of occurrence," Mr. Glenn wrote. "You are the first diver I have heard catching one in 20 years on the job."
Mr. Ward said he does wonder where the lobster is now and whether she'll survive and reproduce. He's hoping he'll come across her again, and while odds are he won't, he was pretty lucky to find her at all.
Oh. And the odds of winning $1 million on that $30 World Class Millions scratch ticket? One in 700,000.
"Maybe I should have done that," Mr. Ward said, laughing.
Back
On Saturday he and a group of friends were, as they often are on weekends, diving. Sometimes they look for lobster, but that day they were gathering scallops off the coast of Marblehead.
"There were a lot of lobsters running around," Mr. Ward said, and while he wasn't focused on the tasty crustaceans, he couldn't miss the brightly colored lobster with a mottled shell that stood out like a sore thumb as it wandered in the open on the ocean floor.
"It looked like a lobster that was dressed up for Halloween," he said.
He caught it and realized it was too small to keep, but having never seen one in more than a decade of diving, he brought it to the surface for a quick photograph and to determine its gender — it was a female. Then he put it back.
At home he began looking up rare lobsters and learned that the one he'd caught was a calico — as unusual as a blue lobster.
A biology teacher at Eagle Hill School in Hardwick, he used the experience as a lesson for his students as they discussed genetics and genetic morphs and how genes work. They discussed why it's so rare to see such a lobster: because its party colors make it much more visible to predators such as the cod. And why this one may have survived: because over-fishing has reduced the number of cod off Massachusetts, increasing the mutant lobster's odds.
He estimated the lobster to be a year or two old and approaching a size when it's too big for a predator to eat, though she "could fit into the mouth of a really big cod," he said.
Mr. Ward also reached out to a friend at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife, who put him in touch with Robert Glenn, the chief marine fisheries biologist for the Invertebrate Fisheries Program at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
Mr. Glenn, via email, confirmed that the lobster is rare, estimating that of about 9.2 million lobsters landed annually in Massachusetts, he gets just 1 or 2 reports of calico lobsters, though exact odds would be touch to calculate.
"If you consider that I likely do not get reports on all that are caught ... I can say with confidence that is a 1-in-1-million to 1-in-3-million type of occurrence," Mr. Glenn wrote. "You are the first diver I have heard catching one in 20 years on the job."
Mr. Ward said he does wonder where the lobster is now and whether she'll survive and reproduce. He's hoping he'll come across her again, and while odds are he won't, he was pretty lucky to find her at all.
Oh. And the odds of winning $1 million on that $30 World Class Millions scratch ticket? One in 700,000.
"Maybe I should have done that," Mr. Ward said, laughing.