No Squidding

I took a quick trip to Port Aransas this weekend to visit with a friend who is doing research there this summer for her dissertation on squid behavior. It turns out that not a lot of people do squid research—not because squid are boring (quite the opposite is true!), but because they are so darn hard to keep alive in captivity. Karin has spent many times more hours hunting for live specimens than actually getting to perform tests on these slippery little critters. Her tests, by the way, involve scaring the squid, which I find completely hilarious. They are like little nervous old ladies, pacing the tank, inking at the slightest provocation, and blinking their skin-chromatophore patterns pseudo-menacingly whenever someone approaches them. I want to give them tiny umbrellas to shake at the riffraff!

Last night, Karin and I went for a little midnight squid hunt to try and catch more test subjects. She has met many seasoned fishermen in her summer quest, and they have tutored her in the fine arts of trawling, hand netting, cast netting, and probably a dozen other forms of squid-napping. They’ve also pointed out all the best places for catching squid. We went to three of them last night and did some cast netting. At two of the locations, fishing was not allowed, which made the whole thing even more exciting. I just yearned to have the police drive up and arrest a biologist and a very pregnant lady for illegal angling! Alas, my rebel fantasies remain unlived—no one noticed us.

We caught nothing, but we did encounter a curious pod of dolphins. They were quite interested in us and surfaced a few times near where we stood. Dolphins make me nervous. (Why? That’s another blog entry…) Something about it being night-time, the illegality of our actions (oh thrill!), these slick and mysterious visitors, and learning a new skill that involves tethering yourself to a net—the combination made for quite an exhilarating adventure! I guess I’m easy these days.

[Image from: http://laughingsquid.com/laughing-squid-photo-by-brian-mccarty/]