Surf serves up squid

Andrew Edwards

After traveling many miles to reach their final destination, the

10-tentacled creatures ended their lives as a strange sight along the

coast.

Hundreds of squid washed up along the shores of Crystal Cove and

Balboa Peninsula this week.

The peculiar arrivals started on Tuesday, when the underwater

denizens were found along the sands of Crystal Cove.

More would follow. Crystal Cove Supt. Ken Kramer said 100 to 200

Humboldt squid lay on the beaches on Thursday.

Newport Beach general services director Dave Niederhaus said city

employees cleaned up hundreds of squid along the peninsula on

Wednesday. When workers returned to their jobs on Thursday, the

animals had disappeared.

“It’s all been cleaned up; either someone’s picked them up, or the

sea has taken them back,” Niederhaus said.

The squid usually live in more southern waters, in the ocean off

Mexico and Central and South America, Orange Coast College marine

biology professor Dennis Kelly said.

The animals often travel north if a warm current leads them in

that direction, and Kelly remembers a similar event involving squid

as recently as two years ago.

“I’ve been at Coast for 31 years, and I’ve seen them come as many

as 15 times,” Kelly said.

The squid found at the beaches were an average of 3 feet long and

weighed about 10 to 20 pounds, Kramer said.

Kelly said Humboldt squid can grow to be much bigger. The animals

travel in schools, which often include 10-foot- long specimens that

can weigh as much as 100 pounds.

“They have been known to grab divers and bite them,” Kelly said,

adding that since Humboldt squid will attack on a full stomach, they

can be more dangerous than a great white shark.

“They will take you out if they’re not hungry,” Kelly said.

Humboldt squid don’t make for very good calamari, Kelly said,

since their meat is too tough to make a good meal.

However, people have been known to try to catch them simply for

the challenge of it.

“A lot of sport fishermen go after them, because they put up quite

a fight,” Kelly said.

“If you catch them at night, they squirt ink, and it gets dirty.”

Kramer said he saw some people taking dead squid from the beach.

“You have people who are hauling them off for reasons unknown,”

Kramer said.

“I would hate to think they’re going to eat them after they’ve

been laying around.”

Eating the squid would be a “really bad idea,” Kelly said, as they

decompose rapidly.