http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=7&u=/ap/20050120/ap_on_re_us/brf_squid_ashore

:sad:

... don't touch? That sounds a bit rough. If anyone is down that way and wants to grab a couple, wrap them up real good and tight, and put them in a freezer it would be mighty appreciated. I can find a way to get them to NZ.

Diseases? Hmmmmmm. Contaminated with DNA no doubt.

It just doesn't seem to be a good day for Squid in California!


http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2005/January/20/local/stories/08local.htm

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/images/050120squid.jpg

I wish I'd heard about this yesterday; I'm calling the Newport Beach lifeguard in the morning to see if they've cleared the beach yet, then at least taking some photos. I doubt I'll be able to preserve any - our freezer is small and very unreliable - but I can find-out if any extras are headed up the coast to Santa Barbara. I'm sure Dr. Hochberg is probably thrilled. This happens periodically along our shores with Dosidicus - there was a mass stranding in La Jolla last year, as well as an identical event on the same beach 100 years earlier. If the surf is high and the bait-fish are in the shallows, these guys tend to get tumbled. The weird part is the fact that eyewitnesses report the squid making strange "dolphin-like" sounds as they die. Odd clicks and whistles. Has anybody out there ever heard anything remotely like this? :squid:

Might be that the funnel was pumbing air and the mouths were moving.

I doubt I'll be able to preserve any - our freezer is small and very unreliable - but I can find-out if any extras are headed up the coast to Santa Barbara.
A few beaks and some length/weight data would be very sweet ;)

TPOTH

Too bad nothing ever happens to HK :sad:

Yeah, I saw this on TV this morning. According to DailyPlanet, a reputable show on the Discovery Channel, 1500 squids have washed ashore/beached themselves on the Californian coast. They have been termed "giant" squid, but never in reference to the actual species. They are averaging 2 metres in length, and around 7 kilos. Pretty Neat!

Saw this on the news......just made my fingers itch to get out there with my measuring board and my statolith gear........and my beak storage canisters ........and .......and........!

OOOOOOOOOOH the frustration!

J

I really have not heard much about mass strandings in squid.

Don't laugh yet.

The only squid I can remember stranding is the humbolt squid. (dosidicus gigas, right?) Why that particular squid?



Squidman :confused:

Cause they'er the only meanys around and they deserve to be stranded ( Can't poeple find it earlier and make a calamari cooking competion) :lol:

I did call the Newport Beach lifeguards the next morning and was told that it was too late; in fact, by the time I saw this posted on tonmo.com, the city had already cleared them all off the beach. A few went up to Santa Barbara, though, and I should be able to get info from them to pass along regarding size, weight, beaks, etc.

:sad:

Oh yeah,

The operator for the fire/lifeguards told me the seabirds were getting out of hand, the squid were starting to get rather ripe, and a woman complained that she had witnessed a little boy trying to wear one on his head like a hat. Wouldn't those suckers be a little painful?

... and a woman complained that she had witnessed a little boy trying to wear one on his head like a hat. Wouldn't those suckers be a little painful?

Kids can't be kids anymore I guess. <sigh>
I bet he turns out to be a Ceph fan though, anyone willing to shove a big, many armed, rotting thing on their head is bound to be a fan when they grow up.

Looking around quickly on the beach and observing no one watching, Dosidicusman dons his Atlantean headgear and is transformed! Where once stood mild mannered Neil Graphite, 10 year old boy, now stands a superhero capable of the most amazing feats, be it saving surfers from great white sharks, hoovering rotting cephs off the beach with his superbreath, or even belting out Roger Whittaker tunes at karaoke night!

I spoke with Dr. Eric Hochberg this afternoon, and as this was an unexpected event, he's probably not going to get around to actually examining his frozen specimens for a couple weeks. I found it amusing that when I mentioned Steve's request for somebody here to freeze a dosidicus for shipment, he seemed perplexed: "I know Steve, why would he be interested in dosidicus..?"

At any rate, he also informed me that Clyde Roper will be at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum giving a public lecture on February 17th, so anybody in the region wanting to hear him speak can attend. A friend of mine at the museum will have more information on Monday regarding the time, ticket prices, etc.

:archi:

Oh, almost forgot, Dr. hochberg also mentioned that there have been a number of recent strandings, sightings, and captures all the way up the West Coast, including Oregon, and some were recently caught off Vancouver Island as well.

Dr. Hochberg will be on CNN tomorrow at 2:00PM PST being interviewed - presumably - about these recent events. Check it out!

What's caught in Vancouver ISland
Is Vancouver Island in Canada, BC? If it is, I'll be overjoyes since I used to live around there.
Excuse my ignorance and bad spelling and grammer.

Yessir!

West Coast of Vancouver Island. Dr. Jim Cosgrove. One of the world leaders in GPO - he's spent (I believe; could be off by a bit) about 30 years studying GPO. Anyway, I'm telling you this via memory when I'm headed for bed after a long night of work, so hopefully I got all I heard on the phone this afternoon correct. Goodnight!

Erich

hmm..does this mean stranded GPO? Doesn't sound right....since I'm to stupid to read.

Well, he's a GPO guy, but the cephs in question from Vancouver Island were more dosidicus.

Ok then, dam humbolts, too agressive if you ask me. :razz:
How come we don't have a Humbolt icon?

Oh c'mon, don't be a weenie. They're CUTE! Like German Shepherds. But not furry. And yes, we need a dosidicus smilie. I totally agree with you.

German Shepard without fur um...yeh...German sheperd without fur, arms,spine, iron based blood and then add copper based blue blood, large eyes, arms, tentacles, gill barriers and ink sacs.

Interesting (if slightly confused article) about the squid invasion of San Francisco:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/02/27/SPG47BHNTB1.DTL

Now where is my copy of "The Kraken Wakes"? ;)

Emps

Thanks Emps -- was just thinking of this story given the recent dolphin strandings. Strange behavior.

Another mass stranding --

Jumbo squid again wash ashore Orange County beaches (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/03/18/state/n085815S81.DTL)

Something else that might be poisoning our offshore waters lately is the Noah-level of flooding that has been off-and-on since October. Tons of persticides, used fossil fuels, antifreeze, organic waste materials, and of course, all that chromium-60 that has saturated S. California's groundwater from the Rocketdyne plant in Santa Suzanna, have just washed right into the Pacific with the flooding. Due to great loss of life on a regular basis from seasonal flash flooding, starting in 1938 the Army Corps of Engineers encased almost all our urban waterways in cement. While this has saved lives here, it has also contributed to terrible drought conditions and has flushed everything nasty into the ocean. Recently, Prop. O passed by a considerable margin and will cause the construction of swales to retain floodwater underground long enough to filter-out contaminants while allowing more water to seep back into the ground the way it used to. In addition to this, we're going to start re-greening the LA River basin, which recently (particularly in Griffith Park) has become a haven for waterfowl. All this rain flushing all that gunk into the sea can't be good for anything, let alone creatures as sensitive to chemical changes as cephalopods. Just hoping it's not that, and that the bulk of the strandings are only the animals that got greedy and came too close to shore. Humboldts are some of my favorite squid! Hate to think we're making those affectionate, cuddly cuties unwelcome along our shores.

By the by, I can't remember who suggested this before, but we really need a dosidicus smilie. Maybe savaging somebody or something (that's how they show LOVE). :tentacle:

Erich :cthulhu:

From 2001 we have MANY Jumbo squid in Chilean waters. Just in march 2005 was landed 90,000 metrics ton and many washed up have been poccured in our beches.

Also, satarting 2002 we are observed that our traditional hake fisheries has been collapsed. Jumbo squid eat a lot of hake and pelagic fishes. Just 1 squid of 25 kg can eat 30 kg of fishes by month, if we assume just a biomass 200,000 ton of squid, those can eat close to 3 millons tons in one year.... amazing!!.

Somebody know what happend with the demersal fisheries in the west coast of America, Canada and Alaska?. I ear many Jumbo squid appear in recent months.

For the Chilean fishermen the Jumbo squids are a plague! ...sorry, but for us it is.