Besides being my boyhood home and the place where most of my relatives live, they're finding dead Humboldt squid washing ashore in Puget Sound. Paradise!
Dan Penttila has been walking Washington's beaches for more than 50 years, made a career of studying small fish born there, and knows pretty much what to expect.
But he could hardly believe it when one day in January, he stumbled over a squid, a species normally found in the warm waters off Mexico and Southern California: the Humboldt squid.
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The Humboldt squid is not an animal to mess with. It's two metres of bad-tempered top predator, wielding a large brain, a razor-sharp beak and ten tentacles bearing 2,000 sharp, toothed suckers. It cannibalises wounded squid, and it beats up Special Ops veterans. But over the next few years, the…
These stories about the Humboldt squid invasion off the California coast keep turning up — the latest from the San Jose Mercury News is broadly informative, and even cites a fresh new paper in PNAS. The work correlates the depth range of the squid with that of the Pacific hake, and also shows a…
If you live anywhere near the Southern California coast, you are aware they are being invaded by the Humboldt squid. In Ventura County they are hauling in boat loads. Two things bug me about these posts.
1. Most of the articles refer to the Humboldt Squid as the Giant Squid, a common name…
Imagine that you hand is made of jelly and you have to carve a roast using a knife that has no handle. The bare metal blade would rip through your hypothetical hand as easily as it would through the meat. It's clearly no easy task and yet, squid have to cope with a very similar challenge every…
sorry this is not related to the post above, but have you heard this one:
An Arkansas science teacher was ordered not to
tell his students the actual age of stones.
it's from Harper's week in review.
do you have any details on this?
PZ, I was down Razor Clamming at the ocean, and talked with people who saw them too. Big, beautiful animals. A discuusion is why they are showing up so far north, evidently as far north as Canada. One person opinioned that the ecosystem is changing because of over fishing, and the squid are filling the volid. Jellyfish are reportedly much more abundant in the north Pacific, supposedly for the same reason.
Besides being my boyhood home and the place where most of my relatives live, they're finding dead Humboldt squid washing ashore in Puget Sound.
And you expect us to believe that this is a coincidence?
sally,
I suggest you follow the discussion thread from when Mr. Meyers mentioned that same Harper's article last week.
When I die, I'm having my body fed to a pack of cephalopods. Humboldt squid will do, and I suppose puget sound is as good a place as any.
http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/Mrobusta.php
We do have large squid in Puget Sound!
Look at the link above.......
Ah PZ, it is clear that our cephlapod overlords want to get in touch with you but you have moved too far away from the ocean. Heed the call and return to the sea (is Myers perhaps changed from Marsh?)
I agree about the other big cephalopods up here, lots of Giant Octopuses to play with, most are shy but some hang out with divers in protected areas and are not averse to taking a crab from your hand.
From reading the article, I don't think the humboldt squid were found in the sound. I'll probably ride my bike down to Dash Point tomorrow. I'll keep an eye out, and take a camera.
No, the Humbolt were at the ocean. But the one in the link above was found close to Dash Point!
Will this be competition for the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus?
Why does PZ Myers hate Humboldt squid so, and why does he want them dead?
"... they're finding dead Humboldt squid washing ashore in Puget Sound. Paradise!"
Not exactly paradise for the squid...