In Peru, it goes by pota. In Chile, it’s known as jibia, and in Mexico “the red devil” after its tendency to turn rouge when hooked. In English, it is the Humboldt squid. However you name it, Dosidicus gigas is the most heavily fished of the world’s squid species.

In recent decades, industrial vessels have increasingly targeted this species on the high seas – beyond country’s exclusive economic zones – while regulations have failed to keep pace. The emergence of a squid fishery in the south-east Pacific Ocean has garnered much attention. But it is part of a wider trend in international waters, where such fisheries are now booming in a regulatory vacuum, leaving experts worried for the health of stocks and the larger ocean ecosystem.

“I am concerned about the massive catch volume, the number of vessels going for squid in these various areas,” says Phillip Chou, senior director of global policy at Oceana, an international oceans-focused nonprofit. Meanwhile, Will McCallum, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, describes squid fishery growth as “one of the most egregious examples of the industrialisation of the high seas”, adding that “it’s happened overnight”.

Squid are invertebrates with an elongated soft body, typically topped with eight arms and two longer tentacles. They are a type of cephalopod mollusc found in every ocean, with at least 290 known species. In the past few decades, the global catch of cephalopods – a class also including cuttlefish and octopus – has risen tenfold, from around 500,000 tonnes annually in 1950 to a peak of 4.85 million tonnes in 2014. The most rapid increases have been in squid fisheries, to the extent that squid now represent a sizeable portion of the overall landings in some ocean regions.

Squid are targeted for human consumption, and in some regions, the increasing catch has coincided with a decline in traditional fisheries, suggesting that squid is becoming a market substitute for fish. In the north-west Pacific, for instance, declines in traditional fisheries, such as Japanese pilchard and Alaskan pollock, have been offset by a boom in cephalopod landings, mostly of squid.

While squid populations aren’t currently classified as endangered, scientists say that a recent rapid uptick in unregulated fishing is putting these stocks at risk. “Squid is very important for ecosystems. It’s not just food for humans, but for everything else in the ocean,” says Alexander Arkhipkin, a senior fisheries scientist at the Falkland Island Fisheries Department.

The vessels targeting squid offshore in unregulated areas are mostly industrial squid jiggers. These highly mobile vessels move easily between fishing grounds and stay at sea for long periods, typically three months to a year, to maximise their catch based on seasonal abundance. Vessels flagged to various countries fish these unregulated grounds, but Chinese-flagged vessels dominate the sector both in terms of numbers and hours fished.

According to the recent study, which was led by ocean policy expert Katherine Seto of the University of California, Santa Cruz, 86% of squid fishing effort is now concentrated in unregulated areas, and 92% of that fishing is by Chinese-flagged vessels. “There are increasing efforts, increasing fishing vessels, increasing fishing hours, and they tend to be increasing disproportionately in unregulated spaces,” says Seto.

Regulation lacking

For the most part, squid stocks on the high seas are unregulated. Currently, 17 bodies known as regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) have responsibility for overseeing fisheries in international waters. These bodies have a remit to allocate quotas between member states, to reduce bycatch and minimise illicit activity. In practice, however, RFMOs only oversee certain fish stocks or certain areas – tuna in the Pacific, for example, or general fisheries in a defined region such as the north-east Atlantic. The limitation of this system is that it leaves some fisheries, such as squid, and some of the ocean’s richest fishing grounds, with no oversight at all.

On the high seas, four areas are of particular concern for squid: the south-east and north-west Pacific, the south-west Atlantic and the north-west Indian.

In the south-east Pacific, each month, several thousand tonnes of Humboldt squid are harvested off the coasts of Ecuador, Peru and Chile, mostly by large industrial foreign vessels. The landings in this region account for around half of the global annual squid catch, but in recent years the catch per unit of effort (CPUE) of the fleet has declined sharply, suggesting that the stock itself is in trouble.

“In the last two or three years, there are indications that the stock is starting to decline,” says Arkhipkin. A similar sharp decline in CPUE has been noted in the north-west Pacific, where a large industrial fleet targets Japanese flying squid (Todarodes pacificus) and neon flying squid (Ommastrephes bartramii).

In the south-west Atlantic, a fishery for Argentine shortfin squid (Illex argentinus) – a smaller, short-lived species – has emerged in recent years, also attracting foreign industrial vessels, as well as a smaller domestic fleet. Squid now account for 10–40% of the region’s annual landings, the wide range explained in part by the stocks’ sensitivity to environmental conditions. In the north-west Indian, beyond the national waters of Yemen and Oman, squid fisheries – mostly targeting purpleback squid (Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis) – have seen an historically unprecedented expansion in recent years. Between 2015 and 2019, the fleet expanded in size by 830%.

For the most part, the surge in squid fishing is happening outside the jurisdiction of RFMOs, in remote parts of the ocean. In the south-west Atlantic, for instance, where Argentine shortfin squid is targeted, there is no RFMO, a result of the ongoing political dispute over the Falklands/Malvinas. In the absence of an authority that sets rules on the number or size of the vessels, or the amount of catch allowed, a large industrial fleet, both domestic and distant-water, has started fishing this part of the high seas.

In the north-west Indian, squid fisheries are, similarly, expanding in a region without an RFMO. A 2021 report by the international nonprofit Trygg Mat Tracking (TMT) revealed the rapid pace of its expansion since its emergence in 2017 up to 2020, when several non-profits including TMT and Greenpeace, last surveyed the area. They found the fishery mostly comprised Chinese-flagged vessels, with the fleet growing from around 30 vessels in 2017 to 279 in 2020, says senior analyst Eleanor Partridge. The same analysis found that squid fishing in this region now includes squid jiggers and vessels rigged with nets, a situation that places other species at risk. “There’s little or no scrutiny besides the flag state of the vessels,” says McCallum, adding that they observed unreported tuna and sharks among the bycatch.

In some regions, however, the situation is more complicated. In the north-west Pacific, for instance, the sharp decline in CPUE has taken place in spite of the presence of a regional authority. The high seas of the south Pacific, where Humboldt squid is targeted, are also managed by an RFMO, in this case the SPRFMO. In recent years, the body, which operates by consensus among its members – 16 nations plus the EU – has recognised the need to introduce rules to moderate squid fishing.

“There is a recognition that the catch level is unsustainable and can’t continue,” says Barry Weeber of nonprofit Eco NZ, who is an observer at SPRFMO meetings. At its most recent meeting, in February 2023, a number of proposals to monitor and control the fishery were put forward, among them a requirement for vessels to carry fisheries observers onboard by 2028, as well as the introduction of limits on total squid catches. These were all rejected. One measure – a pre-emptive limit on fishing effort – passed, but it’s seen as being insufficiently stringent to reign in the fleet. “It’s a cap in name only,” says Weeber.