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Dana LeCompte was out for a family walk Friday at Whiffen Spit in Sooke when something shiny caught her eye.
“We thought it was a piece of metal, a piece of a shipwreck or something,” said LeCompte.
Daughter Sadie Liptrot, 15, and LeCompte’s sister, Karen who was visiting from Vancouver, were in for surprise.
They had stumbled upon a rare fish find. |
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It was a king-of-the-salmon (Trachipterus altivelis), a deep-sea-dwelling species of ribbonfish. Its common name comes from the legends of the Makah people west of Strait of Juan de Fuca, which believe this “king” leads the salmon to their spawning grounds each year.
The fish found about halfway along Whiffen Spit, was about 1.5 metres long, razor-thin and in perfect condition, so LeCompte believes it had only recently washed ashore.
“It was something to see,” said LeCompte. “It’s hard to see from the photo but it had this red line [the length of its dorsal fin, which goes from head to tail.]
She said the large eyes indicated “it must have been a fish that lives in very deep water.”
Since sharing the photo on social media, LeCompte has had hundreds of views and shares. She and her husband, Bob Liptrot, who own the Tugwell Creek Farm and Winery in the Sooke area, were able to identify the fish from Liptrot’s copy of Saltwater Fish of British Columbia.
King-of-the-salmon are deep-water fish ranging from Chile to Alaska that normally live in the open ocean at depths up to 900 metres, and are rarely seen until they end up in a net or occasionally wash ashore. |
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