Giant Squid Drama....
Well, as a few of you might have heard, a couple of researchers (Japanese scientists by the names of Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori) capture live video footage of a real-life giant squid. I'd post the pictures but, quite frankly, they don't look that impressive and only really make sense (due to the lack of scale) to a cephalopod expert. When I heard that they had real video footage of a giant squid I did a quick internet search and found a handful of articles about it. To add meat to the articles, almost all the news agencies also got a statement from renowned "giant squid" expert, Dr. Steve O'Shea of the Auckland University in New Zealand. He's been on a handful of documentaries about the beasts and has (according to what I see online) been trying to capture video footage of an adult giant squid for well over a decade. He's not a terrible guy and I've heard his name mentioned before all of this popped up. I have a secret passion for squids....but only as an artist and horror-movie fanatic. There were a few things Steve said recently that struck me as.....funny. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what I'm reading, but, well, you'll see.
Quote: Dr. O’shea: "From the point of view of the public, who believe this squid is the largest, the meanest, most aggressive squid that we have - it is hugely significant."
Holy crap. Take a good look at that. “From the point of view of the public, who believes ALL THIS TOTALLY WRONG STUFF, it is important.” So while Steve isn’t saying the footage isn’t important, he’s just saying that it’s SEEN as important by the stupid blind masses. Sad truth is he’s kind of right. Giant squid have been “proven” to exist for a while now and the mere fact that someone has video footage doesn’t really “reprove” that. Now, if the squid had been wearing a tuxedo and carrying a meatball sub…THAT would have been ground-shaking. Turns out that yes..it is indeed footage of a giant squid. Still, it’s kind of shitty to call a discovery unimportant and say it backwards so you don’t look like a total dick. Methinks there may be some politics in the cutthroat cephalopod-expert world...otherwise he'd just say it's not a big deal.
Quote: Dr. O’shea: “Our reaction is one of tremendous relief that the so-called … race (to film the giant squid) is over ... because the animal has consumed the last eight or nine years of my life.”
In my mind, all the words the reporter edited out there (…) were curse words. So Dr. O’shea says there was a race to photograph it and that there wasn’t a race to photograph it? Maybe the whole thing isn't a big deal but at the same time a lot of people have invested millions of dollars into getting the footage. He does conclusively state that he’s been consumed with catching one for the past decade. That’s got to be intense and kind of sad at this moment. On a similar note, Dr. O’shea also mentions in the same interview that he captured 17 juvenile giant squid back in 2000 but they all died in captivity. Is it just me or is that a) slightly off topic and b) so much cooler than just having video footage of a giant squid? Hell, Steve’s plan is to capture more babies and grow them in captivity. All I can say is that: “From the point of view of the public, who believe giant squids totally kick ass – it is truly awesome.”
So Dr. O’shea MAY be really pissed as some Japanese researchers and he MAY be growing giant squid in captivity in the near future. I don’t know. It’s still funny to think about:
The worst part is Dr. O’shea’s email address is pretty easy to find online. I WAS going to email him a copy until I took a closer look at his comments and, well, yeah…he kind of comes across as potentially a dick. Potentially. Who knows? It might be because he's being misquoted. It might be that he's bitter/upset about the whole thing. Maybe I will send the thing his way. And then I'll get sued. Or candy. We'll see.
By the way, if you really didn't believe in Giant Squid, then you might want to know that they're common enough that drug lords in Peru use their corpses to smuggle cocaine into Mexico and America. I’m not joking…
Check it out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4016291.stm
Also in fairness to Dr. O’shea, here are the two articles I took the quotes from. Read it and decide for yourself. Personally, I think the quotes HAVE to be out of context. Then again, that “from the view of the public” line was almost insulting.
http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/ap_050928_giant_squid.html
Quote: Dr. O’shea: "From the point of view of the public, who believe this squid is the largest, the meanest, most aggressive squid that we have - it is hugely significant."
Holy crap. Take a good look at that. “From the point of view of the public, who believes ALL THIS TOTALLY WRONG STUFF, it is important.” So while Steve isn’t saying the footage isn’t important, he’s just saying that it’s SEEN as important by the stupid blind masses. Sad truth is he’s kind of right. Giant squid have been “proven” to exist for a while now and the mere fact that someone has video footage doesn’t really “reprove” that. Now, if the squid had been wearing a tuxedo and carrying a meatball sub…THAT would have been ground-shaking. Turns out that yes..it is indeed footage of a giant squid. Still, it’s kind of shitty to call a discovery unimportant and say it backwards so you don’t look like a total dick. Methinks there may be some politics in the cutthroat cephalopod-expert world...otherwise he'd just say it's not a big deal.
Quote: Dr. O’shea: “Our reaction is one of tremendous relief that the so-called … race (to film the giant squid) is over ... because the animal has consumed the last eight or nine years of my life.”
In my mind, all the words the reporter edited out there (…) were curse words. So Dr. O’shea says there was a race to photograph it and that there wasn’t a race to photograph it? Maybe the whole thing isn't a big deal but at the same time a lot of people have invested millions of dollars into getting the footage. He does conclusively state that he’s been consumed with catching one for the past decade. That’s got to be intense and kind of sad at this moment. On a similar note, Dr. O’shea also mentions in the same interview that he captured 17 juvenile giant squid back in 2000 but they all died in captivity. Is it just me or is that a) slightly off topic and b) so much cooler than just having video footage of a giant squid? Hell, Steve’s plan is to capture more babies and grow them in captivity. All I can say is that: “From the point of view of the public, who believe giant squids totally kick ass – it is truly awesome.”
So Dr. O’shea MAY be really pissed as some Japanese researchers and he MAY be growing giant squid in captivity in the near future. I don’t know. It’s still funny to think about:
The worst part is Dr. O’shea’s email address is pretty easy to find online. I WAS going to email him a copy until I took a closer look at his comments and, well, yeah…he kind of comes across as potentially a dick. Potentially. Who knows? It might be because he's being misquoted. It might be that he's bitter/upset about the whole thing. Maybe I will send the thing his way. And then I'll get sued. Or candy. We'll see.
By the way, if you really didn't believe in Giant Squid, then you might want to know that they're common enough that drug lords in Peru use their corpses to smuggle cocaine into Mexico and America. I’m not joking…
Check it out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4016291.stm
Also in fairness to Dr. O’shea, here are the two articles I took the quotes from. Read it and decide for yourself. Personally, I think the quotes HAVE to be out of context. Then again, that “from the view of the public” line was almost insulting.
http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/ap_050928_giant_squid.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4288772.stm
Oh and because I got on a “giant squid” painting kick, here’s another I doodle today:
Oh and because I got on a “giant squid” painting kick, here’s another I doodle today:
The spelling mistake is intentional. No one in H.P. Lovecraft's universe should be able to spell anything. Ever.
-jared
-jared
"who apologizes to Dr. O'Shea but still stands by the fact that some of those quotes spooky somehow"
posted by Jared at 3:12 PM
2 Comments:
If I was Dr. O'Shea and I HAD to waste a decade on finding some so-called "not real" animal, it wouldn't have been the giant squid. Psh, no. Here's to Tecorna, the bull-alligator!
Just saw some HD monster search crap on recovery channel...these guys were fishing for BIG squid as it seemed. This is based on the fact they were using an eight foot live squid as bait...got some footage but the "video" review dude with a pony tail was saying it measured some 60 feet...? see it by any chance?
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