BBC News - Friday, 21 January, 2005
Jumbo squid wash up in California
Hundreds of dead large squid have been washing up on beaches in Orange County, California, puzzling scientists.
The creatures - which can reach 1.8m long (6 feet) and weigh up to 7.7kg (17lb) - normally inhabit deep waters and only come to the surface at night. ...
Between 500 and 1,500 squid - thought to be Humboldt squid - are said to have strewn beaches in Orange County, including Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. ...
A range of possible reasons for the sudden beaching of the squid have been suggested - from recent heavy rains, to plentiful shoals of fish close to the shore, to strong tides.
"These things are invading, and we don't know what's going on," John McGowan, professor emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, told the San Diego Union Tribune.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4193409.stm>
NY Times
Mystery Oil Slick Kills Seabirds Off California
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 21 - A phantom oil slick floating somewhere along a 90-mile stretch of Southern California coastline is killing sea life as investigators scramble to find its whereabouts and origins.
More than 700 seabirds have died, another 700 are under care, and at least one sea lion has been taken to a marine mammal center, officials say.
Scientists were unaware that a killer blob was at sea until birds started turning up a week ago on the shoreline from Santa Barbara to Venice Beach. Most of the birds affected have been Western grebes, though a few are rare pelicans.
The Coast Guard has conducted an aerial search of the shoreline, and oil samples have been taken from the birds and shipped to laboratories for analysis. Still, officials are flummoxed.
"We haven't been able to eliminate anything," said Dana Michaels, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game. "We've got a full-court-press investigation going, even things that sound silly on the surface."
Among the possible sources that investigators are looking into are pipes broken during the La Conchita mudslide that killed 10 people last week, leaking oil platforms in the ocean, seepage from the seafloor, abandoned oil wells, runoff from the Los Angeles metropolis, even cars and trucks that slid into the ocean during the torrential rains that recently pummeled California.
Officials have found no large concentrations of oil offshore, and there has been nothing like a grounding of an oil tanker. Nor have there been any reports of leaking or distressed vessels at sea.
After the rain subsided last weekend, aerial surveillance did spot at least two dozen small patches of oil off the shoreline. But investigators do not think those isolated patches could have harmed so many animals. ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/national/22spill.html>
Carl