Museo del Calamar Gigante

Museo del Calamar Gigante (; ) is a natural history museum located in Luarca, Asturias, Spain.

The original museum, opened in 2010, was administered by the marine conservation group and held the association's cephalopod collections together with other marine exhibits.Centro del Calamar Gigante. [archived] CEPESMA. Esaín, G. (2013). Centro del Calamar Gigante. [p. 190] In: Las 20 mejores rutas por Asturias. El País-Aguilar, Madrid. 242 pp. . It was described as the only museum in the world dedicated to the giant squid (Architeuthis dux)Chaparro, L. (2016). El Centro del Calamar Gigante de Asturias, en el abismo. El Español, 19 February 2016. Staaf, D. (2017). Marketing the mystery of the giant squid. Pacific Standard, 14 June 2017. [originally published on 29 September 2011] and held one of the world's most important collections of large cephalopods,El Centro del Calamar Gigante celebra una jornada de puertas abiertas. Radiotelevisión del Principado de Asturias, 12 August 2010. including the largest collection of giant squid on public display.

Opened in August 2010, the museum was badly damaged by a storm in November of the same year and largely destroyed by another storm in February 2014. As the museum had been a major tourist attraction and an important contributor to Luarca's economy, there was strong local support for its reconstruction or relocation. After several years without progress, two proposals for relocation—first to an adjacent warehouse and later to a former cinema—were put forward and then abandoned, before the local government settled on a plan to move the museum to a former nightclub. It reopened on 15 July 2022.El nuevo Museo del Calamar Gigante abre sus puertas. La Voz de Asturias, 15 July 2022.

Background Giant squid in Asturias From the latter half of the 20th century and continuing into the early 21st century, Asturias has been a global hotspot for giant squid specimens, contributing a significant fraction of all recorded individuals worldwide.Guerra, Á., Á.F. González, F. Rocha, J. Gracia & L. Laria (2006). Enigmas de la Ciencia: El Calamar Gigante. CEPESMA, Vigo. 313 pp. . Serrano, A.M. (2012). Asturias, el paraíso del calamar gigante. La Nueva España, 1 October 2012. Fernández-Pello García, J. (). Calamares gigantes en la costa de Asturias. Senderismo en Asturias. Of the 650 specimens recorded globally as of 2012, 50 were documented in Asturian waters since 1956, or around one specimen per year. They are known locally as peludines owing to the typical "peeled" appearance of specimens that have partially lost their delicate reddish skin.Viñas, M.L. (2013). La monstruosa vida de los 'peludines'. El Progreso (Lugo), 20 September 2013.

The animals received little attention from the scientific community in Asturias, and Spain more generally, until local naturalist Luis Laria drew attention to them, beginning in the mid-1990s.Guerra, Á. (2013). Persiguiendo al calamar gigante en Asturias: Varias expediciones españolas han buscado el 'Architeuthis dux'. El País, 8 January 2013. This marked the start of a long-term collaboration between Laria and cephalopod experts Ángel Guerra and Ángel F. González of CSIC's Instituto de Investigacións Mariñas in Vigo, Galicia, who had previously examined only giant squid specimens from Namibia and South Africa.Martínez Ron, A. (2018). Cuando el ejército de EEUU se llevó dos calamares gigantes de Luarca a Washington. Vozpópuli, 28 June 2018. The first joint dissection was carried out in Luarca in the winter of 1995, on an immature female from the Cantabrian coast weighing .

Work of CEPESMA In 1996 Laria founded the environmental conservation organisation CEPESMA, with the aim of protecting marine ecosystems and promoting environmental education.¿Que es Cepesma? [archived] CEPESMA. Suárez, R. (2020). «No quiero saber nada del futuro Museo del Calamar Gigante que abrirá en Luarca». El Comercio, 9 December 2020. Luis Laria – Naturalista y Presidente del Cepesma. Tribuna Ciudadana. It is through CEPESMA that much of the subsequent work on giant squid in the Asturian region was conducted. By July 2005, CEPESMA had handled 22 giant squid,El calamar gigante hallado en Gandia será estudiado en Asturias. Bajoelagua, 21 July 2005. and by 2009 this number had risen to around 30 collected specimens, of which they had preserved around 20; that year the group received their first specimen with intact eyes.Cascudo, T. (2009). La necropsia al calamar gigante de ojos intactos se hará a principios de diciembre. La Nueva España, 10 November 2009. By 2013, 27 giant squid specimens had been examined by the team. During this time they developed novel taxidermy methods to better preserve and display giant squid, which involved emptying the mantle of its internal organs and replacing them with a semi-rigid structure constructed from fishing nets, before submerging the whole specimen in a formaldehyde solution.

Giant squid specimens from CEPESMA were loaned to a number of institutions around the world, including a male and a female to the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., United States (for €50,000; equivalent to US$ in ), and another specimen to Biarritz Aquarium in Biarritz, France.Laria: «La investigación de los calamares gigantes nos ha dado protagonismo mundial». La Nueva España, 3 March 2007. Wu, K.J. (2018). Operation Calamari: How the Smithsonian got its giant squids. Smithsonian Magazine, 21 June 2018.

Local abundance The frequency of records from the Carrandi fishing grounds off Asturias has been attributed to a confluence of factors, including the presence of three extensive submarine canyons near the coast; the local abundance of the giant squid's favoured prey, blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou); the intensity of the fishing effort in the area; the tendency of local fishermen to report specimens; and the work of CEPESMA in recording and securing specimens.Mario Arce, L. (2013). La viva imagen del «kraken». La Nueva España, 16 January 2013. Geophysical prospecting employing air-gun arrays has also been implicated in several mass stranding events.Guerra, Á., Á.F. González & F. Rocha (2004). A review of the records of giant squid in the north-eastern Atlantic and severe injuries in Architeuthis dux stranded after acoustic explorations. ICES Annual Science Conference 22–25 September 2004, Vigo, Spain.Guerra, Á., Á.F. González, F. Rocha, J. Gracia & M. Vecchione (2004). Calamares gigantes varados: Víctimas de exploraciones acústicas. Investigación y Ciencia (334)[Jul.]: 35–37. Guerra, Á. & Á.F. González (2007). Severe injuries in the giant squid Architeuthis dux stranded after seismic explorations. [pp. 32–38] In: H. Herata (ed.) International Workshop: Impacts of seismic survey activities on whales and other marine biota. Dessau, September 6–7, 2006. Proceedings. Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt), Dessau. 86 pp. The local abundance of specimens spurred an ultimately unsuccessful 2001–2002 effort to film the giant squid in its natural habitat for the first time, dubbed Proyecto Kraken ("Project Kraken").Sitges, F.G. (director) (2003). Proyecto Kraken: En Busca del Calamar Gigante. [documentary film] Transglobe Films. 52 mins. [English version: Kraken Project: In Search of the Giant Squid.]Barreiro, R. (2002). Buscan la primera imagen de un calamar gigante en el Cantábrico. La Voz de Galicia, 20 August 2002. Soriano, O. (2003). Tracking the giant squid. Science 300(5616)[4 Apr.]: 47. El proyecto "Kraken" repite la investigación científica. La Nueva España, 11 September 2002. On 7 October 2016, a live adult giant squid was photographed swimming off neighbouring Galicia, marking the first time this had been achieved outside of Japanese waters.Guerra, Á., Á.F. González & G.J. Pierce (2018). First record on stranding of a live giant squid Architeuthis dux outside Japanese waters. Ecology 99(3)[Mar.]: 755–757. Keartes, S. (2016). Washed-up giant squid shows signs of fierce deep-sea fight. Earth Touch News Network, 13 October 2016.Preston, E. (2018). The bloody pirate life of one of the ocean's most elusive creatures. The Atlantic, 6 March 2018.

History Early giant squid exhibits The giant squid collection that would form the core of Museo del Calamar Gigante began with the arrival of the first specimen in Luarca in 1997.Serrano, A.M. (2020). Eterna juventud para el calamar gigante. La Nueva España, 30 September 2020. The embryonic collection was originally exhibited at the Padre Galo public school (Colegio Público Padre Galo) in the centre of Luarca from early 1998.Peláez, E. (2007). La exposición de calamares gigantes de Luarca cerrará sus puertas el 7 de enero. La Nueva España, 18 December 2007. Centro del Calamar Gigante en Valdés. Qué ver de Asturias. In November 2002, the growing collection was transferred, with financial help from the Principality of Asturias, to Luarca's Villar youth hostel, where was made available. It remained there until forced to close on 7 January 2008 due to the poor state of the building and its supposedly imminent demolition.Fernández, D. (2007). El Aula del Mar de Luarca se trasladará a La Mata durante la reforma del albergue. El Comercio, 8 December 2007. Peláez, E. (2008). El Aula del Mar se aleja de Luarca. La Nueva España, 7 January 2008. It was subsequently moved to a warehouse of , loaned by national railway operator FEVE. The giant squid collection was to be publicly displayed there until the construction of the new museum in Luarca port, but these plans were scuppered by humidity problems in the warehouse. In the end, only the 16 schools that had previously arranged visits were shown the collection at this temporary venue.Peláez, E. (2008). El Aula del Mar no abrirá sus puertas en la sede provisional por problemas de humedad. La Nueva España, 1 May 2008. Luis Laria stated that the warehouse "does not meet the minimum conditions [...] it would not be dignified to charge entrance to a visitor on whom the paintwork will fall" ("no cumple las mínimas condiciones [...] no sería digno cobrar la entrada a un visitante al que se le caerá la pintura encima"). Laria also criticised the forced move from Villar youth hostel, which at that point (May 2008) was still standing.

Throughout this time the giant squid collection formed part of a wider exhibit known as Aula del Mar ("Classroom of the Sea"), which also encompassed items related to climate change, cetaceans, turtles, crustaceans, and molluscs. It received around 4000 school children per year. Of the total collection, which occupied some , around 30% would go on to be exhibited at Museo del Calamar Gigante.

Planning for a new museum In 2005 the Principality of Asturias committed €300,500 (equivalent to US$ in ) towards the relocation of Aula del Mar. As a major local tourist attraction, Valdés mayor Juan Fernández Pereiro advocated for the new exhibition to be located in the centre of Luarca where it would receive more visitors. The first proposal called for part of the fishermen's warehouses (formerly a cannery) at the end of Luarca dock to be set aside for the exhibition, but this was rejected by the owners, and a proposal to construct the museum as an annex to the existing warehouses was taken forward instead.