- What a long, strange trip it's been for a small striped fish native to Japan that apparently hitched a cross-Pacific ride in a small boat believed to be part of a tide of debris from that country's March 2011 tsunami
- Washington state Fish and Wildlife Department biologists found five of the striped beakfish alive in a water-filled bait box on a 20-foot-long Japanese boat that washed ashore March 22 at Long Beach in southwest Washington.
- Invasive species specialists also found a host of other Japanese species of sea anemones, cucumbers, scallops, crustaceans and worms living in what they call the very rare "aquarium" of water that pooled inside the upright boat.
- Except for one fish...the rest of the critters were euthanized to minimize the risk of introducing invasive species to Washington, said biologist Allen Pleus.
But:
- The surviving beakfish goes on display this weekend at the aquarium [in Seaside, Ore]...Curator Keith Chandler says his staff dubbed it the "tsunami fish."
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