Schneier on Security

Riiiiight...

Timid...until you are their supper
Timid...until you are their deep water swim buddy
Timid...until you are their mating frenzy bitch

To para-quote:
Humboldts grow to 5 feet in two years, but that's still hardly mature. To say Humboldts are harmless, is like playing with lioncubs for half an hour, and then writing that lions can't possibly eat people.

Dom

Christ.

At least read the wikipedia article before you risk your life.

They are very passive creatures under most circumstances. When a hungry swarm meets a major food source, however, they go into a feeding frenzy so intense that similar-size cannibalism begins to occur.

A swarm of two foot squid in these circumstances is enough to kill a diver with limited air - they're practically all muscle, ink, suckers, and beak. A single six-foot squid could easier take out a scuba diver.

I'm still afraid ... very afraid.

I remember reading about a guy who raised a tiger cub. It was really tame, liked its owner, totally harmless etc.

One day, the owner was sitting on the deck reading, and the tiger cub was licking his knee. How sweet. Then he realised that the place it was licking was where he'd accidentally cut himself the previous day. The tiger cub was tasting human blood.

He tried to push it away, but it didn't want to stop licking and was too strong for him. Tigers have abrasive tongues. The little cut had expanded and was yielding quite a flow of blood.

The guy kept his head, and called to someone to bring him a loaded rifle. The tiger cub didn't know about rifles, so he was able to put a bullet through its head at a range of zero.

He decided not to raise any more of these harmless creatures as pets.

It's an extremely smart *predator*... just because they can check you out without attacking you on the spot, doesn't mean they (even the same animal) won't attack you another time.

Heck, people regularly get into trouble with pet snakes, and those are *dumb* predators!

Also, "cautious" does not equal "timid".... It just means they're not stupid about unknown phenomena!

I expect there's also a different response to small lights (the glowy tool and reflections off equipment) and large dive lights. Dive lights tend to approximate daylight. Small glowies and shinies tend to approximate normal squid food.

"... and plankton that are no more than a few centimeters in length."

Plankton get that big?

ed: Score one for selective quoting. :)

Forget twitter and micro blogging.

Squid blogging is the best blogging!

I recall still the first hand survivor accounts of ship's personnel
after being sunk off the Chluthu Coast
when the squids came up to feed on the majority of the survivors.
Worse than the sharks in the Coral Sea.

I was fishing two days ago for silver salmon in Clallam bay{in the straight of Juan De Fuca} early in the morning,about 7:30, and caught a 4 foot squid that had entangled itself in my hooks. I was fishing in about 260 feet of water and I am quite sure that my herring bait was not deeper than 60 feet. While the sun was not high in the sky it was definately daylight. I would estimate it weighed 30 to 40 pounds. We debated what to do with it and in the end took the hook from its body and released it.

Fishing off Ucluelet, BC on 9/21/09, with two rods out, trolling in 50 and 70 feet of water, with salmon lures, about 10 AM, in bright sunlight. Both rods got hit by Humboldt squid at the same time. We lost one without bringing it to the surface. The other was brought to the surface, hooked in one of the tentacles. Since we didn't know what to do with this critter, we worked the barbless lure loose, and released it.

(Anybody got any good Humboldt squid recipes???)