A rare orange-and-yellow lobster has been found off the coast of Prince Edward Island in Canada. Instead of the drab colours normally sported by lobsters, this female specimen boosts a spotted orange-and-yellow pattern. According to specialists, she’s one in about 30 million.

The colourful lobster is currently housed with roughly 100 other lobsters at Arnold’s Lobster and Clam Bar in Eastham, whose owner Nathan “Nick” Nickerson has named her “Fiona” after his girlfriend’s granddaughter. Getting a name is not the only special treatment she’s been awarded; unlike the other inhabitants of the tank her claws are not bound with rubber bands and she can therefore keep her house mates at bay. Lobsters can be cannibalistic, especially in crowded environments, but Nickerson says Fiona is “not very aggressive.”
Arnold’s Lobster and Clam Bar has not put the rare orange-and-yellow lobster on the menu.

“Gosh no!” Nickerson said. “That would be like steaming a Rembrandt.”

Instead, Fiona has gotten used to fine dining at Arnold’s – she’s kept on a diet of Yellowfin tuna of sushi quality while the other lobsters have to make do with cod fish. Nickerson plans on continuing to pamper her for a while before donating her to the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History in Brewster or to the New England Aquarium.

Nickerson received Fiona as a gift from his fried Michael R. Gagne, sales manager at Ipswich Shellfish Company Inc. who says Fiona is a “once-in-a-lifetime lobster”.

1According to Michael F. Tlusty, director of research at the New England Aquarium, Fiona’s distinctive coloration is caused by a rare genetic mutation. He estimated she might be 7 years old based on her weight, but how she managed to survive for so many years in her eye-catching garb is a true mystery.

“If you’re swimming over a muddy bottom, it would be much easier to see a yellow lobster than a normal-colored lobster,” said Tlusty, who has been studying lobsters for 10 years.

“Why was she able to survive with her coloration?” Tlusty asked. “That’s something we’re not quite sure of.”

A record number of North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) calves have been found in winter nursery waters off the coast of Florida and Georgia this winter. No less then 39 calves have been confirmed by researchers, a number which breaks the old record from 2001 when 31 calves where spotted.

The North Atlantic Right Whale is one of three right whale species belonging to the genus Eubalaena. Earlier, all three species were classified as a single species. Since 2001, only 20 calves have been born in these waters each year, on average, and 39 new calves in one season is therefore very good news for an endangered North Atlantic species that numbers only about 400 animals.

“Right whales, for the first time in a long time, are doing their part: They’re having the babies; they’re having record numbers of babies,” says Monica Zani, an assistant scientist at the New England Aquarium who works with North Atlantic Right Whales. “We need to be vigilant and still do our part to prevent the whales from being killed“, she adds.

“For me, personally, it is a source of optimism,” says Barb Zoodsma, a marine mammal biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “I just think we’re on the right track.“

It is however important not to put too much weight on one single year. “It’s definitely good news, and it’s the most that we’ve seen, but it’s only one year,” says Kate Longley, who works on a team with the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies to monitor right whales in Cape Cod Bay. “I think it would be premature to make any sort of prediction or any sort of statement about the state of the species based on one year of high calving. There hasn’t been much indication that the species is rebounding significantly.“

To get from their feeding grounds in the Gulf of Maine to their winter nursery areas off the coast of Georgia and Florida, the North Atlantic Right Whales have to migrate through areas with heavy shipping traffic and deaths from collisions with shipping poses a serious risk for this already depleted population.*

During recent years, several attempts have been made to decrease the amounts of deaths and injury from collisions, but it is too early to tell if these changes have contributed to the record number of calves.

In 2003, discussions between Irving Oil Corp. officials and Moira Brown, a Canadian expert on right whales and a senior scientist with the New England Aquarium in Boston, caused the corporation to shift shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy to protect the North Atlantic Right Whales. That same year, Canadian and international shipping officials agreed to shift shipping lanes in the bay between Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, about four nautical miles east in hope of decreasing the risk of whale collisions. Four years later, the US government changed shipping routes out of Boston in an attempt to make the U.S. coastal waters safer for whales, especially the North Atlantic Right Whale.

Another problem faced by the North Atlantic Right Whale is fishing ropes. Today’s modern fishing ropes are strong enough to entangle a whale and rub through its tough skin and thick flesh, all the way into the bone. This year, researchers had to rescue five entangled whales in the southeast Atlantic, using small boats, knives and grappling hooks.

The calving season is now over and the North Atlantic Right Whales are heading back to feed in the Gulf of Maine. Hopefully, a large portion of the newborn calves will stay clear of both ships and fishing gear. If they survive for an additional 5-7 years, they will be able to reproduce and aid this dwindling population on its way to recovery.

* Vanderlaan & Taggart (2007). “Vessel collisions with whales: the probability of lethal injury based on vessel speed” (PDF). Mar. Mam. Sci. http://www.phys.ocean.dal.ca/~taggart/Publications/Vanderlaan_Taggart_MarMamSci-23_2007.pdf.

Wild-caught pets are often recommended against, since the harvest of wild caught specimen may deplete wild populations. In the Brazilian rainforest, the harvesting of popular aquarium species such as cardinal tetras have however helped prevent deforestation and made it possible for local residents to earn a living without resorting to logging, mining, cattle ranching, and slash-and-burn agriculture.

“All this is very counter-intuitive,” says Scott Dowd, an Amazon biologist at the New England Aquarium who has been researching the dark acidic waters of Rio Negro, a major Amazon tributary in Northern Brazil, for the past two decades. “You would think biologists would not want to take fish out of the rainforest. But the fish are the key to miminizing deforestation. The people’s other economic options – timber harvest, cattle ranching and gold mining – are environmental disasters.”
The Rio Negro region has been a major fish exporter for over half a century and 60 percent of local populations rely in this source of income for their sustenance. Since deforestation is known to be detrimental to the survival of financially valuable fish species like the cardinal tetra fish, the Brazilian government has protected the Rio Negro rainforest from logging and burning – at least until now. The situation may be about to change dramatically as more and more aquarium shops switch from wild-caught fish to farm-raised specimens. Wild-caught specimens are used to the dark, soft and highly acidic water conditions of Rio Negro, while farm-raised fish tend to be acclimatized to common tap-water conditions (i.e. clear water that is not very soft or acidic) and therefore easier to keep.

To prevent the market for wild-caught Rio Negro fish from collapsing, Dowd is participating in a “Buy a Fish, Save a Tree” campaign. “The local fisheries look like they are headed for collapse”, Down explains. “But there’s hope that this threat can be addressed. If you ask fish hobbyists if they care about the environment, a very high percentage say they care about it deeply.”

Dowd hopes that the “Buy a Fish, Save a Tree” branding will help Brazilian fish harvesters to benefit from the growing trend of cause labelling, such as Fair Trade and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council).

Another important step in making wild-caught Rio Negro fish a popular alternative to farmed-raised specimens is to adapt them to normal aquarium conditions, and the New England Aquarium is therefore helping local fishermen to efficiently acclimatize wild-caught tetras to a pH-value around 7.0.

Dowd also hope to take advantage of the Internet, by assigning lot numbers to every batch of aquarium fish caught in Rio Negro. “Imagine if you could go online and see a video of the actual fisherman who caught your tropical fish, says Dowd. “I want hobbyists to know directly how their choices can affect people thousands of miles away and how they can make a contribution to saving the rainforest. Things don’t look good, but we can begin to turn all of this around.”