06-09-2006, 08:38 PM
News briefs from California's Central Coast
Mercury News
Posted on Wed, Aug. 16, 2006
[url="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/15287095.htm"]http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...ia/15287095.htm[/url]
Mercury News
Posted on Wed, Aug. 16, 2006
Quote:SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - A tentacle and two arms of a giant squid about 20 feet long were snagged by a sport fisherman off Santa Cruz Island.
"We just saw something odd floating. We were just kind of stunned, but I saw it and thought, 'We better bring this thing in,'" said Bennett Salvay.
The squid parts were found by Salvay, his son and nephew about eight miles off the island on Aug. 11.
Salvay, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Tarzana, said they grabbed and pulled at it and it kept "coming and coming.... We kind of piled it up and folded it into a cooler," he added.
Eric Hochberg, a squid expert at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, said the rest of the squid might have ended up in the stomach of a sperm whale or orca.
The tentacle, reaching about 13 feet, was about the diameter of a broomstick and bore suckers only on its end. The arms were about four feet long and were covered in suckers, the largest about the size of a nickel.
[url="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/15287095.htm"]http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...ia/15287095.htm[/url]