大象传媒

Scott Kassell is catching and studying what locals call the diablo rocho, the red demon. Before 1950 there were no reported sightings of Humboldt squid in the Sea of Cortez. Now there are tens of millions of them. As sharks have declined as a result to over-fishing, the Humboldt squid has been able to take over at the top of the food chain. Locals dare not swim in the waters for fear of being attacked. Though these individuals are small they can grow to a much larger size and hunt in packs and can inflict nasty bites. There's an argument for saying that these are the world's top predators as one squid can have 20 million babies, in comparison to the great white shark which can have just 10 over its lifetime. They are such prolific breeders that these animals are thought likely to upset the balance in the region over the next few years. The squid also has the abillity to adapt to eat all kinds of prey, treating everything they come across as potential food and it's this that makes them such a threat to the ocean balance.