Extirpation of Pycnopodia? Not a thing at this site. Pycnopodia were plentiful and there were more than a few larger specimens.
I had the chance to team up with the Elwha Interagency dive team again this year, for a truncated version of the Elwha dive surveys that we've been conducting since 2008. With just 5 diving days (Rather than 15 as in previous years) we turned our attention towards surveying priority sites from amongst our set of ~20 locations that we've been able to visit in previous years.
However, as can often be the case, we also have to contend with losing dive time to bad weather. We did pretty well this year, but lost our last half a day due to wind chop and swell. Instead, we used that time to visit a site in Port Angeles Harbor called the "Rock Pile" that requires special access authorization from the USCG. It is a pretty cool, and great for fish...
Cabezon
Once more...Pycnopodia!
Dermasterias imbricate...a nice big one.
Copper Rockfish (and another Pycnopodia) in the rocks
Notably, we also spotted a GPO, our first since 2016:
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