Large squid caught near Puget Sound

[seasquirt]

And ANOTHER new squid species discovery! This article is cool; be sure to play the little video clip if you can. It's neat!

http://www.msnbc.com/news/674647.asp

[jazz lady (Premo)]

By Valerie Alvord, special for USA TODAY

SAN DIEGO — Thousands of jumbo squid washing up on the beaches of Southern California are delighting sport fishermen, catching swimmers off guard and puzzling scientists. The influx of the 2-foot-long sea creatures could be the result of an El Niño weather pattern forming in the central Pacific Ocean — or it may be just a fluke. Scientists aren't sure.

"We're catching thousands of them in our boats," says Bob Fletcher, president of the Sportfishing Association of California. "Anytime we see this kind of squid, it means we'll see more tuna and mahi-mahi. This definitely will be a good year for sport fishing."

The bounty of squid off California isn't the only odd happening in U.S. coastal waters this summer. Record jellyfish populations in parts of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean are stumping the experts and vexing swimmers with painful stings.

Eric Hochberg, a biologist with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, says the squid periodically drift north to California from warmer waters in Mexico.

"If they get washed up on the beach, they're goners," says Paul Smith, a fisheries biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in La Jolla, about 10 miles north of downtown San Diego, where the current influx appears to be centered.

Smith says the deep-water temperature off the coast of California is about 5 degrees warmer than normal, which indicates the presence of a "moderate" El Niño effect.

El Niño is a weather pattern formed by warming of Pacific Ocean waters along the equator. That creates a chain reaction that changes weather around the world. The phenomenon sometimes brings highly abnormal weather — heavy rains and mudslides to the arid Southwest, for example, says Pao-Shin Chu, state climatologist in Hawaii.

El Niño also tends to suppress hurricanes in the Atlantic. But the El Niño forming this year is expected to be weak and might not affect hurricanes, says Greg Forbes, severe weather expert at The Weather Channel.

The squid in San Diego, scientific name Dosidicus gigas, are the kind chefs use to carve large calamari steaks.

On the beach at La Jolla Cove, the dead squid are causing mixed reactions.

"They scare me," says Andrew Romero, 15, a guitar player from Fresno who was relaxing after ending a tour of the USA with his Christian music group, Tait. "I figure they might attract sharks."

Megan Moore, 13, of Moreno Valley and her cousins from Fort Worth spent hours tearing the squid apart and feeding them to fish.

Sayaka Kanomata, 22, a day care operator from the nearby neighborhood of Clairemont, says the creatures are "kinda gross. But all the guys I'm with think they're cool."

[Sharon (Premo)]

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Thousands of jumbo flying squid measuring up to 2 feet long have washed ashore at a La Jolla beach, surprising scientists and swimmers.

Workers on Friday removed 12 tons of dead and dying squid stranded at La Jolla Cove. It may have been the largest local mass stranding in nearly 100 years, said Eric Hochberg, a scientist with the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum.

Hochberg believes the quivering, tentacled mollusks were stranded while chasing a school of grunion, a fish that spawns on the sand at high tide. "They're just getting tumbled by the surf and washed ashore," he said.

"It was just unbelievable," said Bill Halsey, 26. "They made these strange noises like a dolphin or a seal as they were dying." :eek:

"The thing that weirds me out about the squid is that they have humanlike eyeballs," Clif Williams said.

The jumbo flying squid, known by their scientific name Dosidicus gigas, normally nestle in the eastern Pacific Ocean but they have been showing up on beaches from Orange County to the Mexican Border. Scientists suspect that they are coming north with El Nino warm water currents.

See pics http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._dying_squid_2

[jazz lady (Premo)]

Dozens of Whales Stranded in Mass.
Mon Jul 29,12:55 PM ET

DENNIS, Mass. (AP) - Rescuers rushed to the aid of dozens of pilot whales that stranded themselves Monday on Chapin Beach in this Cape Cod community.

More than 50 of the small whales were stranded in the shallow water, according to Sallie Riggs of the Cape Cod Stranding Network.

Rescuers poured water over the whales and draped them in wet towels to keep them moist. Officials at the New England Aquarium and the Center for Coastal Studies also were at the scene to help.

High tide was due around 3 p.m. and was expected to help the rescue efforts.

Mass strandings of pilot whales are not unusual since they are highly sociable animals that travel and feed in groups and frequent near-coastal areas.

In July 2000, 10 pilot whales were stranded in shallow water off Nantucket, an island off Cape Cod. They died despite the efforts of volunteers and whale experts.

On Christmas Eve 1991, 31 pilot whales became stranded off Cape Cod and died. Scientists said those whales apparently were following krill, tiny crustaceans that are a dietary staple, when they became trapped in the shallows.

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What IS going on???

[Kyle (Premo)]

Originally posted by jazz lady
...What IS going on???

It might be a "Sympathy Stranding" in support of the San Diego Squid!

[jazz lady (Premo)]

Tue Jul 30,12:59 PM ET
By Christopher Noble

BOSTON (Reuters) - Volunteers worked frantically on Tuesday to keep a group of whales alive after nearly 50 of the mammals beached themselves again off Cape Cod less than a day after they were freed from nearby shallows.

The whales, tired and in distress after spending hours out of the water on Monday, faced long odds of surviving, said Teri Frady, spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"They are very stressed, they are sunburned and it does not appear likely that very many are going to survive," she said, confirming the whales bore tags applied when they were first stranded.

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How very sad...they are beautiful creatures.