SEATTLE — The same gelatinous sea creatures that clogged the intake at California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant last spring have shown up this winter on the Washington coast, marine life experts say.
The harmless jellyfish-like animals are called salps.
They’ve been found by clam diggers and turned up in the pots of crab fishermen who have been asking what they are, said state Fish and Wildlife Department biologist Dan Ayres.
He hasn’t seen them in more than 30 years and says their appearance now is unusual, but not alarming.
“I suspect these guys came from the deep ocean," Ayres said Wednesday. “Why they’ve been washed up is a question I can’t answer."
Salps are common in the blue water off Oregon and Washington, said Rick Brodeur, an oceanographer known as the “jellyfish person" at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Science Center in Newport.
Salps turn up in survey nets, and their numbers vary from year to year. Their appearance on the Washington coast could mean their numbers are increasing for some reason or a current has brought them onshore.
“Sometimes fishermen bring us stuff and say, ‘This is really weird,’ but they just don’t see them" often, Brodeur said Thursday. “It doesn’t mean it’s a long-term change."
Alan Rammer is an environmental education specialist retired from the state Fish and Wildlife Department but still active with the National Marine Educators Association, for which he is marine science teacher of the year. The Central Park resident also serves as the Grays Harbor County representative on the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary advisory council. So when coastal residents started finding salps this winter they sent Rammer photos.
“I was stumped when I got the first pictures," he said. “I had no clue."
A salp is a pelagic tunicate. That means it lives in the open ocean and has a tube-like body that pumps water for locomotion and to filter the plankton on which it feeds. Despite its translucent appearance it’s not closely related to jellyfish. They have the ability to reproduce rapidly and can bloom when the plankton supply is rich.
Rammer believes their appearance is a sign of climate change in their environment.
