Humbolt Squid:
By Julia Stewart Awards: Friends, Haderlie, Myers |
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Captain Julie, photo by Ian Wilson
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As you may have heard, Humboldt squid recently have been spending quite a bit of time in California waters. These are large, fast-swimming animals that have only made brief appearances in the past century, but have now shown up nearly every year since the 1997-1998 El Niño.
So…why are they here? What are they doing? Excellent questions! I am hoping to help answer these questions through my thesis work. I am particularly interested in how answering these questions will help fisheries biologists manage fish stocks, both of the Humboldt squid directly if it becomes a commercial fishery, but also indirectly, since Humboldt squid eat many fish that we also enjoy (including Pacific hake, rockfish, California market squid, and (infrequently) salmon). |
| When are they here? I am looking for patterns in the phenology, or timing, of their presence in relation to oceanographic properties, specifically upwelling. Upwelling is a process triggered by winds that drives the high productivity in the marine environment along the California coast. There is often a relationship with marine predators and upwelling because predators feed on the food chain that begins with the high concentration of nutrients and supports phytoplankton, zooplankton, and beyond. But unlike many other marine predators, Humboldt squid are out-of-phase with upwelling, and arrive instead when upwelling is very weak. I am currently creating a method to predict when Humboldt squid will arrive based on this inverse relationship with upwelling. |
Julie and Gilly with CTD, photo by Ian Wilson |
 Julie releasing a tagged squid, photo by Greg Auger
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What are they doing? In order to learn about their behavior and habitat use, I have tagged nine Humboldt squid in California. This involves going out to sea and fishing for squid, bringing an animal onboard and keeping it calm while attaching the tag and then releasing it gently back into the water. The tag records temperature and depth data and will stay on the squid for up to 17 days before it pops off the squid and floats to the surface, uploading the data to a satellite. Of these nine tags, I have received usable data back from five of them: this is hugely successful! With the data I will compare their behavior to what we have seen in Mexico, and also try to identify on a geographic scale where they have been moving in California. |
| My work is highly collaborative, and I am working with wonderful Monterey Bay researchers from Hopkins Marine Station, NOAA Fisheries and NOAA Environmental Research Division, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). |
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