Friday Squid Blogging: Giant Squid Captured on Video

I also noticed the article said “whales led his team to the squid”. Good example of using intelligence to find something, instead of deploying mindless and destructive dragnets.

The logic at the end of some of the articles seems a bit troubling as well:

“‘Sperm whales need from 500kg to 1,000kg (1,100lb-2,200lb) of food every day,’ he said. ‘There are believed to be 200,000 or so of them, and that would suggest there are quite a few squid for them to be feeding on. I don’t think they are in danger of extinction at all.'”

A – sperm whales eat up to 1,000kg a day
B – there may be 200,000 sperm whales
C – sperm whales eat giant squid (among other things)

Therefore giant squids are not in danger of extinction? Seems to me you could use the same points to argue the opposite conclusion, especially once you add in people finding them and killing them now.

rob • December 22, 2006 2:26 PM

@davi

i think the logic is that since the whales seem to be doing alright, they must have plenty to eat. the giant squids must be making lots of little giants squid babies.

Vicki • December 22, 2006 8:08 PM

Yes, that seems about like arguing that since humans are doing all right, the codfish population must be thriving.

(A) Do sperm whales only eat giant squid? (B) Even if they do, they probably aren’t tracking the squid population closely, and they probably lack effective birth control, so they’re probably not discussing the imminent squid shortage and how to resolve it.

Ian • December 22, 2006 8:36 PM

And changing the topic to security, with a seasonal note:

If a fat old guy with a sleigh and eight reindeer
can penetrate your home’s security perimeter undetected, what else are you vulnerable to?

Sorry, couldn’t resist…

Davi Ottenheimer • December 22, 2006 8:50 PM

@ Ian

Funny you should mention that.

I was just reading how the European Space Agency has developed a plan to beam SaNTA all over the world:

http://telecom.esa.int/telecom/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=3263

“The SaNTA security architecture provides end-to-end confidentiality…”

Wouldn’t want him caught in the action, eh? Haven’t found yet how they expect to deal with all the cookies.

another_bruce • December 23, 2006 3:18 AM

when i saw the squid story elsewhere, i knew it was gonna be on here even before i looked.

Thomas • December 23, 2006 3:58 PM

“””About 100 people have sent me this story. Thank you, everyone.”””

SPAM, now in exiting new Squid flavour!

Fat Fingers • December 24, 2006 2:14 AM

@ Thomas: Squid flavoured Spam ? Doesn’t really sound any more appetising than the regular variety does it 😉

thunder wizard • December 25, 2006 4:29 AM

more than hunting,dreging,fishing, etc. i feel that pollution from industry is probably more of an immediate threat to not only the giant squid but to perhaps thousands of other critters that we are cuttently ignorant of…….we need to know how quickly the giant squid reproduce and the approximate population # of each species of giant squid (if there are more than one?…) before we can really get an idea of how traumaticly our influence could effect them…….friggin interesting stuff though!

Skippern • December 25, 2006 4:58 PM

The funny thing about this is that we (people working in subsea construction) capture things like this on video often years before japanese scientists do so without any credit or media attention

X the Unknown • December 26, 2006 10:15 AM

@Skippern: “The funny thing about this is that we (people working in subsea construction) capture things like this on video often years before japanese scientists do so without any credit or media attention.”

It’s publish or perish, dude. Send your photos to Nature, or some similar publication. They aren’t going to come looking for them…

Skippern • December 26, 2006 2:16 PM

@X the Unknown: “It’s publish or perish, dude.”

If I’d been sitting on the video feeds I would.

El Bodgo • December 29, 2006 1:25 AM

@Prohias: These are Japanese “scientists” tracking whales. It’s way easier to turn a dead giant squid into sashimi than a live one…

david • April 13, 2007 11:37 AM

I like giant squids