Market squid takes hold of Oregon fishery

Oregon fishermen have had a history of harvesting Dungeness crab, shrimp and groundfish along the coast. But, in more recent years, they’re after something new in their nets: squid. Researchers have found that warming waters — from events like marine heatwaves — have played a large role in the increasing numbers of market squid along the West Coast. We’ll hear from Mary Hunsicker, a research ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Josh Whaley, a commercial fisherman of the F/V Miss Emily.

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Note: The following transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: Historically, Oregon hasn’t had much of a market squid fishery. In terms of the value of their hauls, Oregon based fishermen have focused on dungeness crabs, shrimp, and groundfish, but that could be changing. In 2014, they got about 1000 lbs of market squid. Last year, it was more than 10 million. State regulators have noticed; they’re in the process of creating new rules for Oregon’s squid fishery, and scientists say that more squid off the Oregon coast could become the new normal. For more on Oregon’s version of the squid game. I’m joined by Josh Whaley, a commercial fisherman on the fishing vessel Miss Emily, and Mary Hunsicker, a research Ecologist with NOAA. It’s good to have both of you on the show.

Mary Hunsicker: Thank you for having us.

Miller: Josh Waylay first. How long have you been fishing for squid?

Josh Whaley: That would be since 2019.

Miller: Why did you start?

Whaley: It was primarily encouragement from our market. We fish for a company out of Astoria called Da Yang Seafoods. They were buying the market squid from other fishermen, and, as we fish shrimp and crab for that particular market, they encouraged us to get involved.

Miller: And did that give you the signal that, if you were going to catch them, you had a place to sell them? Is that sort of the way the relationship works?

Whaley: Yeah, we felt very comfortable that we would be able to sell them because the processors had a high demand for them. The fish buyers out there are very encouraged about squid because it’s a fairly low labor, and fairly easy to process, product on their end.

Miller: Mary Hunsicker, these are called market squid, or even, I’ve seen them called California market squid. Can you describe these animals?

Hunsicker: Market squid span from British Columbia to Baja, Mexico, and their highest abundances are off the southern and central coast of California. Similar to other species of squid, they have rapid growth rates and short life spans. They live for less than a year, which allows them to adapt quickly to changing environmental conditions, and so what we often see with warming ocean temperatures, for example, associated with El Nino, is that the market squid will sort of expand northward up into Oregon and Washington water. They sometimes even go as far north as the gulf of Alaska with these warming ocean waters. Then, typically with cooler temperatures, the range of their population contracts back down to California.

Miller: Are there more squid off the Oregon coast right now than there used to be? Or are they just being harvested more right now?

Hunsicker: Well, based on our analysis, which is led by my colleague Brandon Tasco, we conducted analysis using survey data off the coast of northern California up through Washington and we estimated the abundance of squid from 1998 to about 2019. What we found is that there was an overall increase in their abundance over that period of time.

Miller: How do you explain that increase?

Hunsicker: What we found was during really warm temperatures, for example, those really warm temperatures associated with a marine heatwave between 2014 and 2019, we saw a really large northward shift in their distribution. The mean location of the population shifted about 200 km north during those really warm periods, so we’re pretty sure it’s linked to these changes in temperature.

Miller: Can we assume that a higher number of squid are here to stay, at least in the coming 10 years or so, given warming ocean temperatures?

Hunsicker: My opinion on this is that we recently had some really warm ocean temperatures. We’re going now into a La Nina, which is associated with cooler temperatures, and so we might see more of that contraction back to California in the near future. But I think, over time, where we are expecting warmer temperatures, more variability, and the natural climate cycles, we will see a more sustained or persistent population of squid in Oregon and Washington.

Miller: So Josh Whaley, three years ago, you got into squid fishing because the market, the processor, told you, hey, we could buy squid if you catch it. Did you need to invest in new equipment for your boat in order to enter the squid fishery?

Whaley: Yeah, quite a bit. We had dabbled in sardine seining back in 2014, so a lot of that equipment was crossover.

Miller: That’s a big net that you have behind you. How does sardine seining work?

Whaley: Yeah, this is the same thing, in general. Squid seining, salmon and sardines seining, are all fairly similar in concept. The net is set in a circle, and then you close it up from the bottom and pull the entire net in until you have product in the last little bit of the net that you have hanging over the side of the boat.

Miller: So since you’d gotten into sardine seining, that already gave you some equipment you could then transfer to the squid fishery?

Whaley: Correct, it gave us a little bit of a head start.

Miller: But there were other capital expenses you had to do?

Whaley: Certainly. A lot of the product back then had been leased, so we actually had to purchase it all to put it on the boat. The boat was set up for it, but we ultimately needed to rework everything, and figure out exactly how that particular fishery works. The skill set and the equipment is completely different from the other fisheries that we participate in.

Miller: It actually sounds like a big deal, then, to add a new business model and new physical practices to your job.

Whaley: It’s a fair amount of effort, to figure it all out and put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

Miller: So how is that commercial bet going so far?

Whaley: Ask me in another five years.

Miller: Not to laugh, but that seemed sort of like a joke. Is it really going to take you that long to know if this was worth it?

Whaley: I wouldn’t say that, we just, we haven’t seen a lot of longevity to the fishery here yet. We still don’t have the history to make decisions on, and it crosses over with other seasons that we participate in. The crab season typically runs from December to some time in March. The shrimp season runs from April 1st to October 31st. Those are our bread and butter. That’s what our business model is based on, if you will, so this is very much a supplemental fishery for us, in between seasons, until it proves otherwise.

Miller: It’s a kind of shoulder season way to make some money? Because my understanding is that the squid season is in early spring, like March or April, and you’re saying that sort of between your two bread and butter seasons. But does it, for example, cut into the beginning of shrimp season for you?

Whaley: It certainly can. We have that decision to make every year that we’ve participated: when do we stop doing this, and start doing shrimp? Because shrimp may already be happening.

Miller: Where do your squid end up? Who is buying and eating them?

Whaley: Specifically?

Miller: Well, I don’t mean individuals, but I don’t think of squid as being a super popular seafood in the standard American seafood market in a grocery store. I see a lot more rockfish and salmon and halibut and farmed trout, and scallops and shrimp and crabs, etcetera, less squid. I’m wondering where, and we’re talking about a huge quantity of squid, especially in California, but increasingly in Oregon. So I guess I’m just wondering where it’s ending up.

Whaley: Sure. So, primarily, where you would see it at a restaurant is calamari on the appetizer menu. That’s the primary use that I’m familiar with. I know a lot of it is shipped overseas as well. The overseas markets are very hungry for it, to my understanding, but yeah, as far as I know, it’s your standard calamari squid.

Miller: Mary Hunsicker, you noted that squid, not just market squid, this particular species, but a lot of others, are known for their short lifespans, up to a year or so. We’ve talked a lot about salmon and the salmon life cycle, which is so different, first of all starting and ending in freshwater in rivers, but also, living for a while and fattening up for three or four years or more in the ocean. How does a relatively short lifespan affect the way fisheries managers think about maintaining sustainable harvest levels?

Hunsicker: With squid, because they have such a short life span and they’re described as the boom or bust populations, the thought is that you could probably fish them pretty hard because they only live one year, because they do have such high turnover rates. In terms of managements, there are different ways to manage them. You could have seasonal closures, you can have catch limits, but I think they could be fished pretty hard with some confidence that their populations can sustain it and will be able to come back.

Miller: Josh Whaley, are you seeing more Oregon boats going out to catch squid as the squid numbers seem to be rising off the Oregon coast?

Whaley: I certainly would say we’re getting a lot more participation levels. It started out with two of us, and now I believe we’ve got somewhere around ten or twelve of what I would call resident vessels that are participating.

Miller: What is that number? How does that number strike you? Do you get the sense that the squid fishery can handle that level of fishing right now?

Whaley: Well, we certainly hope so. We’re all participating in it, and kind of getting our practice up if you will, and trying to learn this fishery. Like you said, sustaining has two levels: we’ve got the resource sustaining, and we’ve got the business models sustaining. I believe that it’s there. It’s just such a short window, or what we’ve seen so far is such a short window, that, very similar to the population, you’re a little bit boom or bust. You’re sometimes happy that you went into it. Other times, you’re happy that you also still have your bread and butter fisheries to continue to participate in.

Miller: I noted that, with the growth of the squid fishery in Oregon, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is now in the process of putting in more rules. What are you hoping to see from O. D. F. W.?

Whaley: I would say that we just want to see some leadership, and focus on the resource here. We certainly have a lot of lessons to be learned from other fisheries, particularly in California, how they’ve managed, but we also have lessons to be learned from possible mistakes that they’ve made. I’d really just love to focus on our waters, our particular ocean conditions, our regulations.

Miller: Is there a particular problem you saw in California that you’d like to not be repeated in Oregon?

Whaley: I just like to not overregulate right out the gates, is a better way to put that. I think the gut reaction could be to say, ‘well look, here’s all their rules, let’s just mirror that and continue on.’ Some of those rules down there may not make sense for us. In particular, we’ve already implemented weekend closures. Great example; some people agreed with it, some people disagreed with it. Weekend closures were put into place in California to allow for uninterrupted spawning and I guess what they would claim as a sustainable practice, right? Or a sustainability practice up here. We see a lot more weather days, so there is already a lot of uninterrupted spawning time, if you will, where we’re not wanting to go out there and set our nets anyways. So there’s a perfect example of southern California, typically a little more tropical, a little more laid back weather. Up here, we’re looking at the early spring, we’re just coming off of winter, we still have a lot of weather days that we’re competing with up here.

Miller: Before we say goodbye, I’m curious for both of you, but Josh Whaley, you first: do you have a favorite way to prepare squid?

Whaley: Calamari is the only way I know. Just your typical fried fried product. And to your question earlier, where you’re saying you haven’t seen it in the stores yet, it’s actually really interesting. If you go to a coastal town where squid is being delivered, it is being sold at every fresh fish live market you can find. People are really excited about it here. Believe it or not.

Miller: Oh, I believe it. I just don’t see as much of it in Portland as other fish. Mary Hunsicker, what about you?

Hunsicker: Yes, I would say the same. Calamari is my preference as well.

Miller: Chop it up in rings and fry it. But what about the tasty tentacles?

Hunsicker: Yeah, I guess

Whaley: It’s all a part of it.

Hunsicker: Put it all together.

Miller: All right, Josh Whaley and Mary Hunsicker, thanks very much.