SALT CREEK – A rare deep sea fish was discovered at the Salt Creek County Recreation Area over the weekend, and it has biologists buzzing at Harbor Wildwatch, an environmental educational non-profit based in Gig Harbor.
A paddle boarder noticed the carcass of a nearly 5-foot-long creature with a huge eye floating in the creek on Sunday.
Members of Harbor WildWatch just happened to be in the area for a day of study at the time and came over to investigate. Biologists Stena Troyer was among them, and told us how they came to be there at that particular time.
“Salt Creek is one of those places that we’ve heard about and haven’t got a chance to visit because it’s out by Port Angeles, so it’s quite the drive for us. It offered kind of a a new set of sea creatures for us to geek out on and take lots of pictures and videos. We find weird things at the beach, but this is maybe one of the weirder things we’ve seen during our time.”
The fish, known as the King of the Salmon, is a member of the ribbon fish family, which spends its life in open ocean and in very deep water. The eye, described as being the size of a coffee cup, helps them to capture as much light as possible.
Its name comes from a legend of the Makah people who believe that this fish leads the salmon home to spawn.
There have only been a few individuals caught or found washed up, so WildWatch members say they were incredibly excited. The fish is about 53 inches long and only about 3 inches wide.
They speculate it swam too close to shore and was killed by the waves as there was no evidence of predation. The tide pushed it up into the creek where it was discovered.
WildWatch members left the fish where they found it after they studied and photographed it.
(Photos of Stena Troyer and unidentified paddle boarder inspecting fish courtesy of Harbor WildWatch)
