(NaturalNews) A mysterious green goo is haunting the West Coast. Local fishermen have dubbed the mystery goo as "mud" for its thickness and muddy color, and have attributed it to this year's abysmal salmon season.

Fishing nets have been pulling in more mud than Nass River sockeye. According to Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the green slime is actually the goo of a type of algae called phytoplankton.⁽¹⁾

Phytoplankton are foundational to the food chain, since they attribute to the first forms of food. Smaller fish graze on phytoplankton, which are consumed by larger predators. In the event of a massive bloom, the carcasses of phytoplankton fall to the seafloor. Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton usually feed the ocean oxygen. The bacteria that decompose the phytoplankton can starve the ocean of oxygen, which suffocates fish and leads to waters devoid of life known as "dead zones."⁽²⁾

Abysmal salmon season

Predictions for the size of sockeye runs are based upon the number of spawning females four years prior, since salmon usually return to native rivers to spawn about every four years. These predictions are used to decide how many fish to allocate for commercial fishing.

Sockeye numbers are dreadful this year. Approximately 775,000 sockeye were expected to return. British Columbia's seine and gillnet fleets were expecting an allocation of an estimated 200,000 Nass River sockeye. This year, however, fishermen can expect an allocation of 60,000 fish or less.⁽³⁾

Commercial fishermen were hoping for an allotment of 900,000 sockeye salmon from the Skeena River. To their dismay, only 130,000 fish out of an anticipated 3.5 million had returned.⁽³⁾

Read more about the ecosystem collapse currently unfolding on the West Coast and in the Pacific Ocean at FukushimaWatch.com.