Jumbo squid that can grow up to 7 feet long and weigh more than 110 pounds are invading central California
waters and preying on local anchovy, hake and other commercial fish populations, according to a study published Tuesday.
An aggressive predator, the Humboldt squid — or Dosidicus gigas — can change its eating habits
to consume the food supply favored by tuna and sharks, its closest competitors, according to an article published in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
"Having a new, voracious predator set up shop here in California may be yet another thing for fishermen to compete with," said the study's co-author,
Stanford University
researcher Louis Zeidberg. "That said, if a squid saw a human they would jet the other way."
"As they've come and gone, the hake have dropped off," Zeidberg said. "We're just beginning to figure
out how the pieces fit together, but this is most likely going to shake things up."
Before the 1970s, the giant squid were typically found in the Eastern Pacific, and in coastal waters spanning
from Peru to Costa Rica.
But as the populations of its natural predators — like large tuna, sharks and swordfish — declined because of
fishing, the squids moved northward and started eating different species that thrive in colder waters.
A fishermen's organization said Tuesday they were monitoring the squid's impact on commercial fisheries.
"In years of high upwellings, when the ocean is just bountiful, it probably wouldn't do anything," Zeke
Grader, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "But in bad years it could be
a problem to have a new predator competing at the top of the food chain."
