Mystery boat in Tofino could be from Tsunami
Posted October 7, 2013 11:02 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A mysterious fishing boat has appeared on the shore of Long Beach in Tofino.
Nobody is yet sure where the boat came from but Dr. John Chapman, a marine biologist and invasive species expert with Oregon State University, says a potentially harmful Mediterranean mussel is easy to spot.
“If it’s grey, it’s not as fearful as if it were green, and brown, and black.”
The mussels have made their way over before as debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami, but Chapman says the longer they keep coming over, the more problematic they become.
“The longer they’re out there, the more likely they are to be of great concern. Our prediction in the first place is that they couldn’t do it. Well we were wrong about that.”
The Mediterranean mussels were once introduced in Asia as an invasive species but now they’re heading east across the Pacific.
He says they could carry diseases or parasites that might threaten ecosystems.
“The things that start coming across often are genetically different, or they carry diseases that come across. There are plenty of reasons, not to be hysterical, but to definitely be concerned.”
He says they can hide on debris underneath less harmless goose barnacles which appear grey or white.
