Observation by Luke Williams:
These fish have washed up all along the tide line at Letnikov Cove. These fish are seen in the winter around this time, but they seem to only show up when the wind blows for a long period of time, and there is a lot of wave swell. We don't know if the fish are dying or getting washed up with the wind, they were all dead on the beach.This is also the second time I have seen this event happen near Haines. The other time it happened was back in 2015 that I observed. It also happened near Skagway last year (2017).
Kristin Cieciel, biologist with the Auke Bay Lab, writes:
Myself and two other colleagues looked at the photos and we concur that it is likely the northern lampfish Stenobrachius leucopsarus but to be 100% sure we would need to physically see the fish. We identified it based on photophore patterns and fin location, also it is one of the more common myctophid fishes that we encounter.
Ted Meyers, State Fish Pathologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, writes:
More than likely the fish have been washed up after migrating vertically on a diel cycle from a similar wave/wind event as previously described by an observer...they seem to only show up when the wind blows for a long period of time, and there is a lot of wave swell.
Comments from LEO Editors:
During a lampfish (Stenobrachius leucopsarus) die-off in Skagway last year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Fish Pathology Lab provided information on fish die-offs. Ted Meyers wrote that large die-off events are more often associated with environmental events rather than a disease. In northern latitudes, die-offs may be related to weather and climate changes that affect water temperature and the local abundance of forage species. The migration of lampfish up nearer to the surface (diel migration) makes them vulnerable to being washed ashore during tides. A weather graph pictured below provides information on wind speed between February 1-6, 2018.
This observation has been forwarded to the Auke Bay Laboratories and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Resources:
Tom Okey from Ocean Integrity Research provided information on the Stenobrachius leucopsarus in an LEO post about lantern fish in 2015. He wrote:
Although the fish in this photo appears a little bit like an anchovy, it is really some species of lanternfish (Myctophidae), which are mesopelagic fish, meaning they normally live between 200 and 1000 meters depth.
They migrate vertically on a diel cycle such that every night they swim up to shallow water to feed and every morning they retreat to deeper depths where there are fewer predators. You may notice the light organs on the ventral surface of the fish, which look like shiny little dots. These light organs are for finding friends of the same species and also possibly countershading or to cancel out the fish’s silhouette and thus hide it from predators that would otherwise see it above them.
Myctophidae is a family, with 246 species in 33 genera. They are found in all the world's oceans. Abookire, Piatt, and Speckman (2002) found a myctophid species, the northern lampfish (Stenobrachius leucopsarus) at 90m depth in Glacier Bay during daytime. Documented in Fisheries Bulletin 100:376–380 (2002)."
Observations From Members