Miles of Dead Squids in California

All over the Northern California coast people have seen a strange sight lately.

Dead squid.

The Humboldt squid are far north of their normal habitats (south, as far as the west coast of South America).

“It’s not typical for them to be in Monterey Bay. It is a fairly recent occurrence for them to be here at all,” Hannah Rosen, a graduate student and researcher at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station, told SF Gate. “We’re hoping that since it has been happening pretty much in our backyard that we will be able to make some headway and find out what is going on.”

Jennifer O’Leary (Hopkins Marine Station)

The squid were between 2 and 3 feet long, dark red, and had large, bulging eyes. 

Thousands of them committed “mass suicide” reports Live Science. 

William Gilly, also of the station, told Live Science that poisonous algae from red tides may be the cause of death. 

“It’s not exactly a smoking gun, but it’s pretty circumstantial evidence that there is some link,” Gilly said. 

A red tide. (Mr. Ducke/Flickr)

NBC, known to most as often perpetuating strange theories and at other times straight up lying, says that the wash up of squid happened just minutes after a 4.0 earthquake off the coast of La Jolla. 

Seagulls started swooping in and feeding on the squid so residents rushed to save them by throwing them back in the water, but it didn’t work out very well. 

“Some people were saying it was the earthquake this morning that caused them to get disoriented but who knows?” John Feher, a local, said, according to NBC.

“A state guy was out and said the earthquake caused (it),” another man said.