Dozens of northern shortfin squid found stranded on Nova Scotia beach

Over a hundred northern short finned squid washed-up on Carters Beach in Nova Scotia recently.

Dozens of northern shortfin squid were found stranded on Carters Beach in Port Mouton, N.S., on Thursday.

Claire Goodwin, a biodiversity and taxonomy research scientist with the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews, N.B., says a mass stranding of this kind may be unusual, but it does happen, and a number of things could have caused it.

“It could be getting chased into shore by predators, they could get stranded on shore that way. It could be a combination of tide and current events washing them up closer to shore,” said Goodwin.

“They are normally found deeper in the water between 40 to 400 metres on the coastal shelf, so we don’t normally get them as close to shore as they have been being found, so it could be they got washed in with currents and stranded on beaches.”

Goodwin says the reason so many of the squid washed ashore at one time is because they travel in large groups.

Squid die when they lay their eggs, so some people in the area speculated that may have caused the mass stranding, but Goodwin says that’s unlikely as this particular species doesn’t typically spawn in that area.

“This species doesn’t actually spawn in our waters. It spawns further south and their spawning events tend to take place in the fall,” explained Goodwin. “So, I don’t think it is related to spawning, although you do get those washed up sometimes with different squid species.”

She emphasized her team doesn’t think anything manmade caused the event.

“Because this species has a short lifespan and tends to die off after a year and a half, and the population seems to be healthy, so we don’t think these big stranding events are harming the population in any way, either,” adds Goodwin.

Since there isn’t a way to determine the exact reason for the mass stranding on Carters Beach, there isn’t a way to prevent it from happening again.

“I was looking back over some records, and it happened a few years ago, so it could possibly happen again this summer,” adds Goodwin. “Because we don’t really know what’s causing these events, we can’t really say for sure.”

The squid were no longer on the beach Monday morning. It isn’t clear if they were removed or if they washed back into the water. Goodwin notes they could have also been eaten.

Meanwhile, she says it’s important to record events like this and encourages people to report them when they see them. She recommends the iNaturalist app to document such findings.

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