Humboldt Squid attack video

[gonetobaja]

Tortuga you are right......

The clip is cut as a very high paced action clip. Just to make sure things are cool I must say that we release any squid that we catch. If you ever get a chance to watch the entire video you will see that our goal is to bring awareness to the animals. Right now they are being killed by the thousands every night. Our goal is to bring the truth of the animal to light. What we are concerned about is actualy on the same line as your comments. We feel that because of some of the press on TV that makes the animals out to be non-dangerous. You can imagine that there are people out there that will see on TV that Humboldt Squid will only try and "attack" at night, ant the only time they do that is when there is a artificial feeding frenzy created by the fishermen.

We dive only in the day. We dive when there are no fishing pangas in the water.

I will admit that your chances of getting grabbed go way down if you get in the water with more than 2 divers. The squid seem to know that their chances of success go down and they just swim by close instead of tasting. Our hope is to hire out the panga fishermen to take out divers to photograph the squid rather than eat them.

There is a very funny show out called grizzly man. Its about this guy that thinks that he can live and interact with the grizzly bears with no protection other than a stern voice. He was eaten.

I feel the same way about tigers...ya never know.....

To be honest I cant wait to get a copy out to some people so they can review it. I hope it sells as many copies as jaws!

Thanks for all of the comments and opinions everyone. As you can guess, alot of work went into this production. To me SCUBABOARD is one of the only places in the world where our stuff can be checked out by other "divers" not just the usual "non-diver" types. The opinions of this board hold alot of weight with our production company and we do use the info from these posts to make changes.

Thanks again for your continued input

GTB
www.sea-wolves.com

 

[ScubaBabe22]

I've seen footage of Humboldt Squid attacking divers on TV before, Discovery I think... The guy had on a protective fiberglass suit. They out that the squid were more prone to attacking humans when the local fishermen were fishing in the vicinity. I know others on the board have seen it too.

Ditto Dennis, I saw the same documentary, I think the guy diving was a former special ops diver! However, I was under the impression that there was some reason for their aggressive nature, the documentary I saw even showed them being canibals. EEKS.
The squid were big, perhaps they felt threatened by the divers/ swimmers?

Either way, we are in their environment and it was a really cool video to watch.

 

[texasdiver13]

I saw a doc about a week ago on the humboldts. Two divers went in at night with no fishermen around to observe the humboldts. No aggression or color flashing toward the divers at all. But when hooked on a jig and fighting for their life, of course there is aggression, just like any other animal.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying there harmless, you should always respect any animal while your in there enviroment, I just think you shouldn't make an animal out as a killer out for diver blood.

Dave

 

[gonetobaja]

I saw a doc about a week ago on the humboldts. Two divers went in at night with no fishermen around to observe the humboldts. No aggression or color flashing toward the divers at all. But when hooked on a jig and fighting for their life, of course there is aggression, just like any other animal.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying there harmless, you should always respect any animal while your in there enviroment, I just think you shouldn't make an animal out as a killer out for diver blood.

Dave

Dave,

My partner Scott was involved in the Documentary that you watched. The thing that is frustrating is that they make the animals out to be non-aggressive. that scene was shot when they basicly couldnt find the animals. Just going out in the sea of cortez at night time will not bring a squid encounter. The people who were responsible for making that show were just trying to be fasionable.

"We found that the squid where not attacking us, the attack behavior must be from the fishermen...."

They wanted to portray the animals in a different light. The show was made to seem like they had discovered something different about the squid, that they were really not dangerous and that the attacking was caused by the fishermen. It would be hard to sell a video to Discovery that has no "Discovery"

If they had done a show that said the squid were dangerous it would have been nothing new. The reason they did it like they did IMHO is that they had no real footage to back up any claims. If they had footage of the squids actual behavior then I guarntee they would have shown it. But the bottom line is that they had no footage of how the squid really act so they had no choice but to sway the show towards the "squid are missunderstood" side.

My opinion is that squid attack things for one reason.....they are hungry. I would not say they are out for diver blood, just blood period. An animal that grows from a small organism to a 7ft animal in two years just cant pass up an opportunity to feed.
They will check taste just about anything from what I have seen.

The great thing about Scubaboard is that me and the producer are reading all of the posts and are now going to create a trailer that shows a more "documentary" feel for my fellow divers.

 

[texasdiver13]

My opinion is that squid attack things for one reason.....they are hungry. I would not say they are out for diver blood, just blood period. An animal that grows from a small organism to a 7ft animal in two years just cant pass up an opportunity to feed.
They will check taste just about anything from what I have seen.

The great thing about Scubaboard is that me and the producer are reading all of the posts and are now going to create a trailer that shows a more "documentary" feel for my fellow divers.

I'm glad you and the producer are open to constructive criticism. I wish you guys the best of luck with your video. Once there available pm and I'll pick one up.

Dave

 

[havnmonkey]

I agree with GTB about the way wild animals act; people-- mostly NOT active divers,surfers, fissherman-- tend to forget that the animals we encounter in the underwater world are very hungry. If they are able to attack and kill a type of prey without great danger to themselves, they will do so. A pack of six foot, obviously carnivorous, squid vs. a six foot human; I think the odds of a meal favor them.

Sharks on the other hand don't appear to have as high a metabolism; they don't devour everything in their paths because they don't require that much energy intake.

Just imagine if a humming bird had a six foot wingspan... how many children would it have to eat to keep up that kind of flight profile. -- I put that comparison in because the squid seemed to be pretty flighty and back and forth kind of like a humming bird.

 

[kapula]

It's great if this forum has some impact on your film! You seem to have great footage and ofcourse you also have a written script that you want to follow. You've decided that script long before the actual shooting to get the kind of footage you want to. That's the way things are mostly done. Ofcourse it affects the results but on the other hand there's no way to be totally objective. Nobody would like to watch that film then.

What I'm trying to say is that yes we should be very vary of big carnivous creatures. As we don't have gills we are even more vulnerable underwater. GTB is propably right about those squids being hungry. They can also just be curious but if that concerns dragging a diver deep down it's pretty much the same. If a squid shows it's love by dragging you 100 metres below and doing that drowning you I don't care if it means to show you good time - it's downright dangerous. Should they be hunted down for being animals? No but I wouldn't go petting one either. Should they be marketed for divers... hmm I ain't any fan of shark feeding as it affects their feeding behaviour. As we know so little about these creatures it maybe isn't the best idea to try to capitalize on them by turning them to a tourist attraction as they are obviously wild and unpredictable.

to havnmonkey: those squids have a single bone and that's in their mouth. It's very streamlined and swims by shooting water or waving it's "flippers". I'm pretty sure it takes a lot less power to move than a shark even though sharks are stream lined aswell. I do agree with you about animals taking their chance if they see an easy prey. Even our cat jumps on the dinner table and grabs some meat if you leave it there (knowing for sure that if he gets caught he's in trouble) and he's pretty well fed

 

[Trinigordo]

I'd love to do some humboldt diving, they are just so precious. Cute wittle squidy widdy

 

[mislav]

My problem with the clip, and you did ask for opinions, was that you seemed to go out of your way to find squid and get them to attack, then you kill them. Then the whole thing is edited like a monster movie. My opinion is that these kinds of movies are making people afraid of the water and less caring about environmental concerns, rather than educating them about the subject. Blue Planet was able to explain the ferocity of squid without trying to terrify anyone. I just prefer a more balanced approach. Just my opinion and I'm sure others will disagree.

I agree with this.

I do believe that you should involve some suspense in your documentary, as long as you have it all explained later on. As you can see by these questions, even the diver community doesn't know all that much about the Humboldt's. Imagine what effect a scary squid movie might have on a general population. And if your movie teaches more prejudice than knowledge, can it really be called "a documentary"?

So, here's another vote for a more balanced approach.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Actually, the program I saw left me with the impression that they are only dangerous when the fishermen are around. The film boat tried to shoot away from the fishermen and when they did, the squid exhibited no aggressive behavior, just curiosity.