OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
OUR VIEW
Trump’s presidency
should start with
bridge-building
riday it became official: Donald J. Trump historically
was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.
No, he is not favored by a majority of Americans, but
he won the election. The keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
have exchanged hands and the earth did not tilt off its axis. The
country still stands, and the democratic transfer of power pro-
vided proof of the strength and resilience of the United States.
We’ve made clear our distrust of Trump, as many others
have too. In our view, he has not proven to be a moral per-
son, nor knowledgeable about the many problems this coun-
try faces. We’re worried that his bag of tricks is filled only with
platitudes and insults.
But worried is no way to go through life, nor a presidential
term. Perhaps Trump will be similar to the 44 men before him,
just one that likes to beat his own chest a little more than the
rest.
We’re happy to give him credit for each and every success
he earns. And we hope those successes are plentiful and we
really do get sick of winning, whatever that means.
But we know that Trump is even more divisive than Hillary
Clinton, the opponent he bested
back in November. His calls for
Donald
unity are drowned by his contin-
Trump has
ual jabs at whoever he chooses to
fight with at the time — House
his work cut
Republicans, the media, civil rights
out for him.
legends or even Meryl Streep. A
We must
majority of Americans also see
Trump as someone who is cavalier no longer
about freedoms that we all hold
cheer
dearly.
Whether President Trump likes
his rock
it or not, this will be a divided
throwing
country. He gets to run it, we have
— nor our
to live in it.
So how do we make it better?
own or from
How can we bridge the divide?
those who
We can start with communica-
represent
tion. We must work on stopping
the political polarization, not just
us — but
in Washington, D.C., but here at
instead
home as well, and that starts with
each of us. We are not friends and
implore him
foes, we are all Americans.
to build
At The Daily Astorian, we con-
bridges and
sider our thoughts and write them
down, send them to you to read
not walls.
and respond. We hope you do more
of the latter — two-way conversation is the first brick toward
bridge-building.
We can all say something, and we can all do something.
Protest peacefully, if you so choose. Donate to the charity of
your choice. Volunteer with local organizations. Buy American
products. Hire American workers. Read a newspaper. Be
involved in local decisions. Make suggestions. Write your con-
gressman and tell them how Obamacare affected you — if it
saved your life or priced you out of house and home. Agree to
disagree when necessary with those we interact with. We need
knowledge, not rancor. Our politicians need it even more, and
that’s been evident thus far in the Senate confirmation hearings
of Trump Cabinet nominees.
Donald Trump has his work cut out for him. We must no
longer cheer his rock throwing — nor our own or from those
who represent us — but instead implore him to build bridges
and not walls.
Together we must work, against all threats both foreign and
domestic, to Keep America Great.
F
LETTERS WELCOME
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SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
What lies beneath the sea
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
ome visitors to the North Coast
describe them as “little fingers”
on the beach. Others describe
them as “plastic pickles.” Their
name in Greek
means “fire body.”
In Australia giant
pyrosomes can
grow to 90 feet and
could consume a
human being. In a
sense they are like a Frankenstein
monster of hundreds of animals
coming together to make one
organism.
“They’re all over this year for
some reason,” Tiffany Boothe,
administrative assistant at the Sea-
side Aquarium, said early this
month. “As soon as I saw one I
picked it up and put it in my bucket
and brought it to the aquarium.”
“Pyro” is the Greek word for fire
and “soma” means body, Boothe
said, and are known for their bril-
liant bioluminescence — pink, yel-
low or bluish — and are not typi-
cally seen along Seaside beaches.
Like jellyfish, they cannot survive
when air gets in their lungs.
A field guide, “Tidepool and
Reef,” by Rick M. Harbo, pres-
ents a fascinating array of sponges,
mollusks, sea stars and tunicates.
According to Harbo, tunicates are
“encrusting colonies of distinct indi-
viduals in a stiff gelatin-like tunic.”
Orange social sea squirts —
their real name — divide asexu-
ally to form numerous rounded indi-
viduals that often cover intertidal
and subtidal rocks. Other species
like the stalked hairy sea squirt, the
sea peach and sea pork, are found
encrusting rocks, barnacles and
shells. Pyrosomes are classified as
a colonial tunicate, a member of the
only group of chordates — animals
possessing a dorsal nerve chord —
able to reproduce both sexually and
asexually, with hundreds of ani-
mals coming together to make one
organism.
While author Harbo writes that
tunicates are not edible, Boothe said
turtles and sunfish consider them a
“delicacy.”
“It’s not necessarily something
whales and dolphins are going to
find delicious,” Boothe said. “I’ve
heard dogs are eating them — that’s
not a great thing, but they’re not
poisonous.”
Like sea cucumbers, “When you
squeeze them, water shoots out,”
Boothe added. “They’re very con-
fusing little creatures. I don’t like
talking about them.”
S
Davidson Current
Visitors to our beaches in winter
never know what they might find,
whether it be a sea lion, bloated gray
whale or even a salp, a transparent
invertebrate that looks like aspic.
“In the summer we have a current
that comes down from the north that
cools our water down,” Boothe said.
“In the winter, the Davidson Current
comes up and warms our water up
a little bit, so we tend to stay at the
same temperature all year round.”
According to the Oregon Coastal
Management Program, the Davidson
Current begins 600 feet below the
surface in Baja, California. In win-
ter, southwesterly storms drive the
Davidson Current’s warmer, saltier
flow northward along the coastline 6
to 12 miles per day, displacing cur-
rents offshore, even at the surface.
If winds change, warm weather
animals may be stranded in cold
water .
Tiffany Boothe/Seaside Aquarium
A pyrosome is categorized as a
marine tunicate.
Tiffany Boothe/Seaside Aquarium
Close-up of a pyrosome.
Submitted Photo
Thunder, an olive ridley turtle, receives care after washing ashore in
Gearhart last December.
Tiffany Boothe/Seaside Aquarium
Some visitors say the pyrosomes look like “little fingers.”
Results are apparent on our
beaches. Over the past year and a
half, at least five sea turtles washed
to shore dead on arrival.
Last winter two olive ridleys,
Thunder, which washed ashore in
Gearhart, and Lightning, in Pacific
City, were malnourished, hypother-
mic and comatose — but still alive.
A U.S. Coast Guard escort and
rehabilitation team transported the
turtles to San Diego’s SeaWorld.
Sadly, Thunder was discovered
floating in her rehabilitation pool a
few weeks later, but Lightning con-
tinues to receive care.
Curator of fishes Mike Price
said Lightning remains in SeaWor-
ld’s care, rehabilitating in a 12-foot
deep, 90,000-gallon holding pool
along with two other rescued olive
ridley turtles.
Sea turtles — olive ridleys,
green turtles and leatherbacks —
may continue to wash to Seaside’s
sand beaches this winter, putting
the aquarium on “sea turtle watch.”
“They don’t have to die,”
Boothe said. “They can just get
stressed out.”
‘Marvel!’
Like the western snowy plover,
which leaves its subtle nest among
19 acres of Gearhart dunes, the
message may be to pay close atten-
tion to the world under our feet,
what Seaside naturalist and photog-
rapher Neal Maine calls “a carpet
of living phenomena.”
“These are living, dynamic sys-
tems,” Maine said at a Decem-
ber lecture celebrating Haystack
Rock. “They’re just not as conspic-
uous as some systems like fish in
the stream or elk coming across the
meadow.”
In a year dedicated to the
50-year anniversary of Oregon’s
Beach Bill, Maine said he hopes
to help recast Oregon beaches as
an ecosystem and “reconnect the
beaches to the landscape.” He
suggested citizen-level efforts to
expand the discussion on beaches.
With General Manager Keith
Chandler, Boothe is among those
leading that effort as the Seaside
Aquarium continues to foster edu-
cation and awareness.
While she’s yet to collect any
live pyrosomes, she goes exploring
every day so visitors “know what
we’re finding on the beach and
talking about.”
And if you’re lucky enough to
find a pyrosome, what should you
do?
“Marvel!” Boothe said.
“They’re kind of cool!”
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astori-
an’s South County reporter and edi-
tor of the Seaside Signal and Can-
non Beach Gazette.