University of New England students Kai Watkins, left, and Claire Fecteau-Volk release baby lobsters at Ram Island in Saco Bay. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

BIDDEFORD — With steady hands and firmly planted feet, students at the University of New England gently lowered tiny orange lobsters, no bigger than their thumbs, into the cold salt water.

UNE’s marine biology students had stepped in as “foster parents” for 30 baby lobsters since they were hatched last year. And the time for reunification with the sea had now come.

The release followed two years of research and hard work — nursing their single-clawed mother back to health (eventually regenerating her claw), tending to 10,000 larvae, preparing the best meals a lobster can eat (fish and blue mussels) and extracting piles of genetic information.

University of New England student Claire Fecteau-Volk holds three baby lobsters before releasing them at Ram Island in Saco Bay. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

This work has all been in pursuit of an experiment to breed more orange lobsters, one of the rarest of its kind. The odds of finding one in the wild are 1 in 30 million, making them rarer than the 1-in-1 million blue and purple lobsters. Markus Frederich, a professor of marine sciences at UNE, and his team of students managed to breed 15.

“It’s opened a whole other world for me,” said Claire Fecteau-Volk, a marine biology undergraduate student leading the project.

The researchers are now heading back to the lab, where they will work to answer the question at the root of all the work: How do orange lobsters, surrounded in a sea of mottled-brown brethren, come to be?

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

The project unintentionally launched in 2023. That’s when a Scarborough fisherman accidentally caught the original lobster, which UNE eventually named Peaches, in Casco Bay.

With the odds stacked against them, they took on a project that would require each step of the process to fall perfectly into place. The state of Maine has tight restrictions around catching breeding-female and undersized lobsters to preserve and sustain lobster populations.

But Peaches, who at the time had no eggs, was missing a claw.

UNE already had a teaching permit from the state that allows it to possess 10 undersized lobsters. And once Frederich discovered that Peaches had produced eggs, Frederich got another permit from the state that allowed the university to raise an unlimited number of sub-legal-sized lobsters from that lobster only.

Marcus Frederich, a professor of marine sciences at UNE, looks under Peaches the lobster’s tail, which was filled with eggs, in January 2024. Some of those eggs grew into rare, orange lobsters that UNE released on Monday. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

Frederich said it was a “Let’s see what happens next” project — unlike anything he’s ever done.

“This project dropped into my hands out of nowhere,” Frederich said. “I thought, ‘Let’s just do it, because it’s this amazing opportunity which I can’t ignore.’”

Frederich and his students, including undergraduates Ruby Motulsky and Fecteau-Volk, were intrigued by how the color of Peaches’ shell came to be.

“We have this limited time window to work with the next generation, a whole other cohort of potentially rare lobsters,” Fecteau-Volk said.

Baby lobsters cast shadows while being transported to Ram Island in Saco Bay for release on Monday. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

After Peaches’ eggs hatched, the team began studying the babies and their genetic information — and for fun, Frederich added, “guessing what color each baby will be.”

Those colors could change with the many molts the lobsters undergo before they reach their final hue. Half of Peaches’ litter came out blue but eventually turned to brown. The rest of the lobsters remained orange.

RELEASE THE BABIES

By late April, the researchers had extracted all of the genetic information they needed from the baby lobsters, each now 1 year old. It was time to set them free.

In the warm, Monday morning sunshine, the researchers headed out on a boat to introduce the lobsters to their natural habitat. They docked on Ram Island, UNE’s multipurpose research station just off the coast of the Biddeford campus.

Fecteau-Volk and Kai Watkins, a graduate student, then had a treacherous task: keeping their balance atop the slippery, seaweed-covered rocks with the small tank of small lobsters in hand.

UNE student Claire Fecteau-Volk, center, releases baby lobsters as fellow student Kai Watkins, left, and marine sciences professor Markus Frederich, right, hold the small tank at Ram Island in Saco Bay. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

The team then took turns scooping the young lobsters, one or two at a time, out of the tank and into the tide.

Fecteau-Volk described the feel of the babies in their hand as “damp buttons.” One pinched Fecteau-Volk’s finger on its way into the water — though unlike the crush of an adult claw, it felt more like a tickle.

They spread the lobsters out across the shoreline, ensuring each one had enough territory to settle down safely.

And then, there was the bittersweet, final goodbye. The babies are now on their own — they won’t be tracked.

“Let’s hope these little babies survive,” Frederich said.

FOR THE LOVE OF SCIENCE

Frederich doesn’t anticipate that the results of the research will shake up the lobstering industry. There’s no plan to push more orange lobsters into Maine’s waters — nor is there a dire need for it.

Rather, Frederich said, he launched the project as a way to incorporate exploration into his teaching.

“It’s like being a little kid, going to the world with open eyes and trying to understand what’s there,” he said. “Not every project needs to have the ultimate goal to save the planet. We’re learning new things, and that’s exciting.”

Markus Frederich, professor of marine sciences at the University of New England, heads out to Ram Island in Saco Bay, where he was releasing baby lobsters with students on Monday. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

Ahead of their release date, the baby lobsters traveled to Kennebunk Middle School. The students went wild; Frederich described the reaction as an “insane zoo.”

He believes that any spark of curiosity marks the success of this project. And for Fecteau-Volk, a senior who has been with the project since the start, those sparks ignited a fire.

“I’m not from Maine originally, so I had no idea what the lobstering world was like beforehand, aside from what ended up on my dinner plate,” Fecteau-Volk said. “It’s really cool to see how the creature works and how that translates into how we take care of it.”

Frederich and his students will now dive deep into the data, working to decode the 15,000 genes they extracted.

“We’ve no idea what we will learn or why it’s important that we learn that. We might find that out later,” he said. “You’re building a foundation of all kinds of information, and it might come in handy one day. And if it doesn’t, it still allowed us to teach.”

University of New England students Kai Watkins, left, and Claire Fecteau-Volk release the last of a group of baby lobsters at Ram Island in Saco Bay on Monday morning. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald