Oregon Sea Grant

This paper discusses that appearance of pyrosomes (P. atlanticum) in coastal waters near northern California, Oregon, and Washington north of their previously reported range since 2014. By the summer of 2017, pyrosomes appeared in unprecedented numbers along the entire west coast, reaching the Western Gulf of Alaska, but showed some of their highest abundances off Oregon clogging nets and disrupting marine activities such as commercial and sport fisheries.

Rebuilding of some U.S. West Coast rockfish (Sebastes spp.) stocks relies heavily on mandatory fisherydiscard, however the long-term condition of discarded fish experiencing capture-related barotraumais unknown. We conducted two studies designed to evaluate delayed mortality, physical condition,and behavioral competency of yelloweye rockfish, Sebastes ruberrimus, experiencing barotrauma dur-ing capture followed by recompression (assisted return to depth of capture).