The carcass of a giant squid washed ashore at Scarborough Beach on Tuesday 16 August, the second such incident reported in a few short months.
Mayco member for spatial planning and environment Eddie Andrews said the City of Cape Town’s coastal management branch assisted with the removal of the carcass.
“Scientists from the Iziko Museum were alerted and took measurements for records and samples for genetic testing.
“Although they are deep water animals, this is not an unusual event as we do get one or two washing ashore in this area every year.”
In the previous incident a giant squid washed ashore at Long Beach in Kommetjie on Saturday 30 April.
Jon Friedman, Wildlife Officer from the Cape of Good Hope SPCA, and a team collected those samples.
At the time Friedman said giant squid grows incredibly fast and only lives for around five years.
“The earliest recorded stranding of a giant squid on our beaches dates back to 1972. The last one we saw here was in 2020 when a squid measuring 4,5 m stranded at Britannia Bay.”
“The largest giant squid recorded in South African waters to date, measuring in at 9,1 m, was stranded on Kommetjie beach in 1992.”
Tissue samples from that carcass was also taken to the Iziko Museum for research.
According to Friedman, although rare, giant squid strandings on Cape beaches are not a new phenomenon.
“Giant squid are normally deep ocean dwellers, typically inhabiting depths of between 300 and 1 000 metres.”
At the time Friedman said there was no need to panic or be alarmed by the stranding of the squid.
“Unless we suddenly start to see more strandings of giant squid along our coasts, I would hazard that this case is not a cause for alarm.
“Giant squid are found in all the world’s oceans but it’s only when one washes ashore that we are really afforded a rare glimpse into this mysterious species.”
