'Too rare for us to keep': Cobalt blue lobster found off Nova Scotia

The catch of the day turned out to be much more blue than what 14-year-old Finley Campbell expected. 

Campbell joined his fisherman grandfather on Saturday morning on a lobster fishing trip. After a couple of hours, his grandfather found a rare specimen in a lobster trap while fishing off the community of Little River, about 45 kilometres south of Ingonish, N.S.

"I had my earphones in so I couldn't hear them," Campbell said. "I took them out and looked over at him and he was holding a blue lobster in his hands."

A blue lobster is a rare phenomenon that occurs every one in two million. The colour is caused by a genetic mutation that causes the lobster to produce an excessive amount of a particular protein.

Campbell said he hoped to find something exciting on the fishing trip, but did not expect to see and hold a remarkable kind of lobster.  

"When I go on the boat, I wanted to catch something cool and we ended up catching it in the morning," said Campbell. 

Campbell said that in the 50 years his grandfather worked as a lobster fisherman, he had never seen a blue lobster. Throughout this extensive fishing career, he has seen lobsters that spanned a variety of other colours, including white, gold and purple.

They released the blue lobster back into the water. 

"We threw him back into the water, nice and gently," Campbell said. "Obviously he's a rare one, but we wouldn't keep them. Too rare for us to keep."