This paddleboarder wasn’t prepared when a giant squid tried to climb aboard for a ride

Facebook/James Taylor

South African man James Taylor, 39, was enjoying a day paddleboarding with friends off the coast of Melkbosstrand when he came across a giant squid “just behind the waves.”

Videos by Rare

“Unfortunately, it was very badly injured,” Taylor explained. “Had lost a couple of tentacles and had some bite marks on the upper part of its body, so it didn’t make it. It was already very weak when we caught it.”

Realizing that the squid probably wasn’t going to live much longer, Taylor and his friends decided to “try get it to the beach for research purposes before it got more damaged by seals in the area.”

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Part of their quest to drag the creature out of the ocean was filmed and later posted on social media. In it, Taylor attempts to pull the squid close to him with a rope, but the squid quickly starts wrapping its tentacles around his paddleboard. At one point, the animal unbalances the board so much that Taylor gets knocked off. Once they got to the shore, Taylor felt he had no choice about what to do.

“It didn’t even really try and get away, so we ended up putting it out of its misery when we got to the beach,” he said. “It felt like the best thing to do at the time.”

Taylor claimed the squid was later identified as a mature male, which can often grow up to 33 feet in length. He determined that the creature had floated out of its home in the deep-sea to the surface to die. He figured if he could beach it, researchers might have some use for it.

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“It was unfortunately a holiday, and they did not have any staff on call to drive through, so we dissected it and took a bunch of videos and photos that we later sent to them so that they could at least have a look at what we found,” he said. “They sent these on to a professor who has been studying giant squid in South Africa for the last 15 years, and he was very excited about the find. He told me the next day that he has only seen five wash up on South African shores since he started his studies.”

What do you think?

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