This collection was brought to our attention by former DSN staffer Peter Etnoyer in 2008.
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Today is Cephalopod Awareness Day. Jason at Cephalopodcast asks us to “embrace your inner octopus and let the world know what we think of our tentacled friends.”
At the moment, Craig is in the running for a spot on a documentary series about the deep-sea. He is one of five finalists on the casting couch in Boston today, so I am taking the opportunity to revive an old post documenting known attacks of the Kraken. As you will see below, I don’t think of squid as “friends”. Quite the contrary…
These are turbulent times. Lately, an awesome sea rides in on violent storms ravaging Gulf coasts and Indian coasts, destroying cities, bringing marine life up on land. These are important developments in the ocean climate. Our homeland security may depend on our ability to defend ourselves from these encroaching dangers.
Those of us that have witnessed first hand the bony sawtoothed tentacles of the colossal squid, and have learned of its medieval club shaped appendage, agree that sea monsters really do exist, and we must begin to take precautions. Perhaps we can set aside centuries-old and troubled quests for oil and religion, and focus now on the real and most dangerous enemy lurking below- the Kraken.
Below is a short list of the known and documented attacks from The Book of Sea Monsters by Bob Eggleton and Nigel Suckling. Beware the giant squid my friends!
1930. Royal Norwegian Navy vessel Brunswick between Hawaii and Samoa overtaken by 9m squid, which rammed the 150m hull, grappled the steel hull, then slithered into the stern to be turned to mincemeat by their propellers.
1965. Crew of the Soviet whaler Mirny– Giant squid attacks 40 ton sperm whale, neither survive. The whale is strangled, the squid’s head is bitten off.
1991. Alex Kirstich, cameraman. Attacked while filming a “human-sized” squid (Dosidicus sp.?) off the coast of California. Three of the squid drag Alex to the depths as he struggles, then change their mind for no apparent reason and release him.
