4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2017
Pyrosomes: They’re hard to avoid right now
Comey: Trump
administration
spread ‘lies,
plain and simple’
Continued from Page 1A
‘All you see’
Wednesday. In that testimony
he had already disclosed that
Trump demanded his “loy-
alty” and directly pushed him
WASHINGTON — For- to “lift the cloud” of investi-
mer FBI Director James gation by declaring publicly
Comey asserted today that the president was not the tar-
President Donald Trump get of the FBI probe into his
fired him to interfere with his campaign’s Russia ties.
Comey said that he
investigation of Russia’s role
in the 2016 election and its declined to do so in large
part because of the “duty to
ties to the Trump campaign.
“It’s my judgment that I correct” that would be cre-
was fired because of the Rus- ated if that situation changed.
sia investigation,” Comey Comey also said in his writ-
told the Senate intelli- ten testimony that Trump, in
gence committee in explo- a strange private encounter
sive testimony that threat- near the grandfather clock in
ened to undermine Trump’s the Oval Office, pushed him
to end his investigation into
presidency.
“I was fired in some way former National Security
to change, or the endeavor Adviser Michael Flynn.
Democratic Sen. Joe
was to change, the way the
Russia investigation was Manchin of West Virginia
being conducted,” Comey asked Comey the key ques-
testified under oath. “That is tion: “Do you believe this
a very big deal, and not just arises to obstruction of
justice?”
because it involves me.”
“I don’t know. That’s Bob
Comey also accused the
Mueller’s job to sort
Trump administra-
that out,” Comey
tion of spreading
responded,
refer-
“lies, plain and sim-
ring to the newly
ple” about him and
appointed
special
the FBI in the after-
counsel who has
math of his abrupt
taken over the Jus-
firing last month,
tice Department’s
declaring that the
James
Russia investigation.
administration
Comey
In a startling dis-
“defamed him and
closure,
Comey
more importantly the
FBI” by claiming the bureau revealed that after his fir-
was in disorder under his ing he had actually tried to
leadership. And in testimony spur the special counsel’s
that exposed deep distrust appointment by giving one
between the president and of his memos about Trump
the veteran lawman, Comey to a friend of his to leak to
described intense discomfort the press.
“My judgment was I need
about their one-on-one con-
versations, saying he decided to get that out into the public
he immediately needed to square,” Comey said.
The Republican National
document the discussions in
Committee and other White
memos.
“I was honestly concerned House allies worked fever-
that he might lie about the ishly to lessen any dam-
nature of our meeting, so I age from the hearing, try-
thought it really important to ing to undermine Comey’s
document,” Comey said. “I credibility by issuing press
knew there might come a day releases and even ads point-
when I might need a record ing to a past instance where
of what happened not only to the FBI had had to clean up
defend myself but to protect the director’s testimony to
Congress. Republicans and
the FBI.”
The revelations came as Trump’s own lawyer seized
Comey delivered his much on Comey’s confirmation,
anticipated first public tell- in his written testimony, of
ing of his relationship with Trump’s claim that Comey
Trump, speaking at a packed had told him three times the
Senate intelligence com- president was not directly
mittee hearing that brought under investigation.
Trump himself was
Washington and parts of the
country to a standstill as all expected to dispute Com-
eyes were glued to televi- ey’s claims that the presi-
sions showing the testimony. dent demanded loyalty and
The former director immedi- asked the FBI director to
ately dove into the heart of drop the investigation into
the fraught political contro- Flynn, according to a person
versy around his firing and close to the president’s legal
whether Trump interfered in team who demanded ano-
the bureau’s Russia investi- nymity because of not being
gation, as he elaborated on authorized to discuss legal
written testimony delivered strategy.
By ERICA WERNER
and ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press
THE DAILY
ASTORIAN
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6
Sam Zeman, an Oregon
State University research
associate, said as the sur-
vey boats went farther away
from shore, they saw bigger
and bigger pyrosomes, some
roughly 2 feet long.
One researcher fixed a
GoPro camera to a net and
dropped it over the side. It
was a glimpse into a famil-
iar world that had become
very odd. They saw pyro-
somes down to a depth of 100
meters, as far as their equip-
ment could go.
“Watching that footage was
eerie,” said Jennifer Fisher, a
research assistant with Ore-
gon State’s Cooperative Insti-
tute for Marine Resources
Studies that work closely with
the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration,
who was on a survey cruise in
May. There’s blue water in all
directions, shaded turquoise
to dark cerulean, “and all you
see is pyrosomes.” They seem
to hang in the water, like an
army. At night, they drifted
near the water’s surface.
Fisher is pretty sure cock-
roaches will survive the apoc-
alypse. After this most recent
cruise, she added pyrosomes
to the list.
“It’s very eerie,” Zeman
said. “There’s nothing else.
It’s just them, and it kind of
never stops.”
“They could just keep
going,” Brodeur said. “We
have no idea where they end
offshore.”
Fire body
Though it looks like a sin-
gle creature, a pyrosome is
made up of individual clones.
Hence the Borg reference,
though in the case of the pyro-
some, the organism is phys-
ically linked unlike the TV
characters who are mentally
connected. A single pyro-
some might contain hundreds,
if not thousands of individual
animals, said Caren Braby,
marine resources program
manager with the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wild-
life. They don’t sting and they
can’t bite. They are essen-
tially hollow tubes, filter feed-
ers, and very little is known
about them.
They are chordates, Braby
said, lacking actual vertebrae
— bones that form the back-
bone — but with the begin-
Submitted Photo
Pyrosomes can be massive. Some can glow.
ning of a spinal chord, Braby
said. If you were to compare
an octopus or a pyrosome to
people, “we’d be more closely
related to a pyrosome.”
Elsewhere, pyrosomes can
be massive and even display
bioluminescence. They glow.
This is likely how they got
the name “pyrosome,” a com-
bination of the Greek words
“pyro” and “soma”: fire body.
The organisms off Oregon
aren’t quite so magical, pos-
sibly because they aren’t con-
suming the right bacteria, one
researcher theorized.
Salmon trollers from New-
port to Alaska reported pyro-
somes ending up on the end of
their hooks. In fisheries, like
the pink shrimp fishery where
the gear itself is designed to
exclude other fish, pyrosomes
are the right size and shape to
jam up the works.
Shrimper Steve Davis,
who runs several boats out
of Warrenton, said the pyro-
somes can be so thick on the
gear that nothing else can get
past them. At the very least,
they make it so he’s catching
less than he should be.
“There’s just so many of
them, it’s hard to pick them
out,” he said. They range
from the size of a pinkie fin-
ger to almost a foot long, and
they seem to float in packs. If
a boat is unlucky enough to
hit a patch of them, “you go
somewhere else and hope that
they’re not that thick,” Davis
said.
It can be frustrating, he
said, “especially when you
know people are catching
shrimp around you.”
But the pyrosomes are
hard to avoid right now.
For trawlers like Warren-
ton-based Paul Kujala, the
organisms are more of a nui-
sance than a hindrance to
fishing. They’ll clog nets a
bit, and when they’re pulled
up with the rest of the haul,
invariably some will end up in
the fish hold.
“And that’s one more thing
you don’t want,” Kujala said.
At night, he and his crew
have hit patches of water
where all they can see, in any
direction, are pyrosomes.
“You always see one or
two, but never in the numbers
that we’re seeing now,” Davis
said.
Why?
The question right now is,
“Why?” Why are they here?
What changed? The ocean
has been unusually warm for
the past two years with weak
upwelling winds this year,
both factors that could have
brought pyrosomes, which
seem to favor warmer water,
closer to shore. Research-
ers noted that the change in
temperature coincided with
an apparent increase in pyro-
somes here. But now the Ore-
gon Coast is seeing strong
upwelling winds again, and
the water is cooling.
“Will they stick around?”
Fisher said. She thinks it’s
a window of time, a sort of
natural experiment that will
end soon. The pyrosomes’
absence could almost be more
revealing than their presence,
said Fisher. This makes the
data collected on the survey
cruises this spring even more
important. Combined with
data from previous years,
researchers might be able to
tell a story. “At least a short
story,” Fisher said.
Brodeur, Zeman and other
researchers don’t know if the
pyrosomes are affecting other
animals in the ecosystem.
These are organisms that fil-
ter very small particles; it’s
hard to know if they are com-
peting with other animals
for food. But, having them
in such high numbers could
have important ecological
consequences.
“How important are these
to the ecosystem?” Brodeur
wondered. “How much food
are they eating and are they
a trophic dead end?” In other
words: Where are they on the
food chain? His lab is in the
middle of analyzing samples
collected on survey cruises,
looking at links between cur-
rent environmental conditions
and their population boom
here as well as their role in the
food chain.
“We’re learning on our
feet,” Brodeur said.
What is missing
At the same time research-
ers are seeing masses of pyro-
somes, they are not seeing
other creatures.
“If there’s a positive side
to this, the normal jellies that
we get, that tend to be a nui-
sance, we don’t know if they
will be here this year,” Bro-
deur said.
And there are no velella
velella, or by-the-wind-sail-
ors, drifting jellyfish-like crea-
tures that sail over the surface
of the water. They often wash
up in piles on Oregon’s and
Washington’s beaches, crisp-
ing and turning white in the
sun. In recent years, velella
velella were so dense out on
the ocean that passing boats
several times mistook them
for sheens of oil and radioed
the U.S. Coast Guard think-
ing a boat had sunk nearby.
This year, they are nowhere.
A wave of them showed up
in February, but since then
they haven’t really been seen.
Velella velella is a spe-
cies with ebbs and flows,
but in hindsight, Fisher said,
their absence is a little odd.
“Everything else seems like
it’s getting back to normal,”
she said. “We have cold,
nutrient-rich water, we have
upwelling, we’re starting to
see krill again. All of these
things that have been absent
over the last few years, but
now we have pyrosomes.”
Fees: Bill needs only Gov. Brown’s signature
Continued from Page 1A
according to the Legislative
Fiscal Office. State parks offi-
cials said they want to use
the proceeds to beef up main-
tenance and repairs at parks
facilities.
State Rep. David Brock
Smith, R-Port Orford, tes-
tified last month the tactic
could help stimulate tourism
in parts of his district on the
southern Oregon Coast.
“We know that for just a
little bit more in some of our
places that are very special
and loved, that we might be
able to drive more folks (to
other parks),” Sumption said.
“For example, on the south
coast, we could get folks to
go from a larger campground
that’s full and maybe use
price and other amenities to
drive folks to Humbug Moun-
tain, which is at 17 percent
capacity.”
The goal is to find “a way
to disperse people and cre-
ate greater access and oppor-
tunity through price as one
tool,” she said.
LISTINGS
A - Charter Astoria/ Seaside - L - Charter Long Beach
The Senate voted 27-1 to
pass the bill. The state House
passed the legislation unan-
imously in May. The bill
needs only a signature from
Gov. Kate Brown to become
law.
The Capital Bureau is a
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