A University of Victoria oceanographer studying the so-called “warm blob” of water off the B.C. coast has observed unusual, “squishy” visitors from the south — and that could be bad news for young salmon.
John Dower, who just returned from a research cruise north of Vancouver Island, said he saw remarkably high amounts of tiny animals called zooplankton in the “blob,” a huge mass of ocean water about 2 degrees warmer than normal.
And the varieties he saw are normally found off northern California — not Canada.