Do squid eat the salmon? Salmon decline thoughts

With the massive swarms of squid from last year and the poor salmon fishing this year. I have been wondering if the squid are cleaning house in the ocean on the salmon. I tried doing some research online and haven't found any reference to this, but what do those squid eat?

Here it is in december and we have yet to recieve any decent amount of rain. No water can equal poor salmon fishing.

We all remember the rolling blackouts from a few years ago. At around the same time the delta pumps starting pumping at night. Several studies show that salmon fry and more readily killed when the pumps are running at night.

-Brian G

I think your second and third observations concerning habitat are probably more likely than the "squid hypothesis" for why salmon populations are declining. 

Don't get me wrong, I think any link between squid and fish populations would be cool, but if anything I think it might be that declining fish populations (due to habitat loss and over fishing) have allowed squid populations to boom (less competition).

In April 2009 both DFG and BML reps at the fisherman's festival in Bodega by told me "NO!" the Salmon population decline is not due to the Squid.

But an impressive Explorer named Scott Castle who I heard give an excellent presentation is sure the answer is "YES"  Humbolt Squid are the reason the Salmon population is decimated.  Stating "The Squids primary predators Shark, Tuna and Marlin have been over fished and the Squid population has exploded." 

I'd like to hear from some of our NCKA resident expert biologist on this.  It makes sense and he claims there is some video to support it.  He also mentioned some video on UTUBE where the Squid are eating all the Rock Fish off Cordell Banks and beyond.  This Video shows the Squid at Cordell Banks

Check out Scott's Voyager Project web site and donate if you feel so led, I was impressed with his proposed mission to take his sub around the world.  I am also convinced he will inspire many youth to minimize use of computers and TV to live a more active healthy life style.

http://www.underseavoyagerproject.org/

   In the Jan western outdoors news there is a article that links the humbolt squid to the decline of the salmon.  This is not the first spieces that the squid have removed. 

If you want more info I can see if I have the paper still.

tom

As voracious as they are why wouldn't they eat the salmon???

"These nasty creatures are eating all the salmon. Help me eradicate the squid before they eradicate our salmon! That'll be 60 dollars, please." 
I have no research to back this statement up, but I bet the humboldts have been out there doing their thing for a lot longer than people have targeted them. They only recently gained notoriety because: 1) there's nothing else to fish for and a Cap't has to make money somehow; 2) the media has latched onto the story because it contains the essential elements of a good story, including scary seabeasts.

Do they eat salmon? Sure, they'll eat anything they catch. But salmon are a highly migratory species, so it seems like they would have less effect on salmon compared to a sedentary species, like...maybe rockfish.   

So is anyone fishing for these guys commercially? It seems like a natural. Abundant, easy to catch, nobody likes them ...

Here's a report I made in 2007 from the American Fisheries Society Symposium in San Francisco.  Part of the report dealt with findings on Humboldt squid.  In 2007, researchers were thinking that the influx of these animals (which usually don't inhabit this area) is due to some type of response of the Oxygen Minimum Layer (OML) and the changing climate.  Basically this layer, which these animals use for predatory cover is moving inshore and more northward giving these squid a predatory advantage.  At the time they were hugely concerned about the level of feed needed for the tremendous growth rates of these animals.

http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php/topic,9879.0.html

Maybe the loss of Chinook salmon off of California is the response to poor water management practices in the Sacramento, but I offer 2 arguments that suggest otherwise:

1)  The Sacramento Chinook fishery has been largely (like 95%) artificial for over 50 years - since the giant water projects that dammed all the major tribs.  A group of seven huge hatcheries has supported the runs of these fish since then, and little has changed in their methods.  For most of the last 50 years they have produced commercially sufficient numbers to support the fishery.  Although more water has been pumped recently, It hasn't been a radically different regime from the past.  Evidence suggests that something is going on in the marine environment......at least enough to trigger some queries.

2)  I work with coho salmon.  These fish in the North Central Coast of California have little life history similarities with Chinook in their freshwater phase.  They do not live in the Sacramento, but rather small, un-dammed coastal streams.  The data that I've collected - monitoring the number of spawners returning upstream and the number of smolts leaving the streams clearly suggests that first, stream production is adequate to good, and, second, that fish are not returning from the ocean.  The coho on the north coast are failing on the same trend as the Sac Chinook, and every one of my cohorts, the guys collecting data on coho in California, will tell you the same thing: Since 2005/2006 something is going on in the marine system that is limiting survival.  Again, these fish do not share the same freshwater habitat as Chinook.

I have no idea if Humboldt squid are dong this or something else.....but something is going on.  A friend of mine suggests the higher than normal populations of mackerel offshore, when the smolts were outmigrating might have something to do with it.  Macks are voracious smolt predators.  I don't have a clue.

   An uneducated suggestion. In the middle of the night , at the proper depth, perhaps you could present  several varieties of fresh dead fish including salmon at a good distance apart, and see if they showed a preference. Several weeks of tests etc.

I used to be pissed of at sea lions, now I want to sick them on the humbolts. 
maybe the sea lion can pay us back now.
I want to sick the lion on the mlpa too.  Hunt 'em up boy.

Oregon (or is it Washington?) is issuing commercial licenses for them and it's hard to see the harm in that

Note the title on this article ... WA state lets fishermen sell salmon-eating squid.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009859494_apwahumboldtsquid1stldwritethru.html

WA is letting commercial fishermen sell squid bycatch.  Considering opening up full commercial fishing for them this year.

-Allen

Now there's a first. I never thought I would want to see the demise of by-catch.