"Massive Bloom Of Pickle-Shaped Sea Creatures Fills The Pacific"

"Millions of tubular sea creatures called pyrosomes have taken over the Pacific Ocean in an unprecedented bloom that has scientists baffled.

These bumpy, translucent organisms look like sea cucumbers that range in size from six inches to more than two feet long. But they’re actually made up of hundreds of tiny animals knit together with tissue into a filter-feeding cylinder.

And they’re everywhere, filling the waters off the West Coast all the way up to Alaska, and washing up on beaches.

One research boat caught 60,000 of them in five minutes. They’re so thick in Alaska that fishermen gave up on fishing because their hooks were coming up full of pyrosomes instead of salmon."

Cassandra Profita reports for Oregon Public Broadcasting/EarthFix June 18, 2017.

Source: OPB/EarthFix, 06/22/2017