Back in September of 2014, NOAA Fisheries scientists reported watching a persistent expanse of exceptionally warm water spanning the Gulf of Alaska. The concern was that it could send reverberations through the marine food web. The warm expanse appeared about a year ago and the longer it lingers, the greater potential it has to affect ocean life of all kinds. The image below is of those September sea surface temperatures (SST's), pictured as degrees Celsius above or below normal (key is at bottom of image).
Then, in December, Oregon birders reported an unprecedentedly large die-off of Cassin's Auklets along Oregon beaches. (See North Coast Diaries & this Statesman Journal article).
The preliminary results suggest that starvation combined with winter storm stress may have caused the die off. I managed to get out to the beach and see this in a couple of locations along the coast. It was truly remarkable and unique in my 17 years of living along the coast.
I even watched one exhausted auklet bobbing too near the South Jetty of the Columbia River. It was finally picked up by a monster swell and smashed down into the rock crevices. It did not reappear. This photo is of one that was already dead on the rocks.
Are the auklets not finding the food they need? Below is the most recent monthly SST anomalies map from NOAA -- notice especially the warming zone right off our coast. No solid proof of anything for sure here, but something to definitely keep an eye on.
Comments
