Hundreds of Squid Wash Ashore : Marine life: Creatures are offspring of South American species. They strew popular beaches in Orange and San Diego counties.

SAN ONOFRE — Hundreds of squid carried by unusually warm currents and strong surf washed ashore Friday along some of the most popular surfing and sunbathing beaches in San Diego and southern Orange counties.

“I’ve seen little squid before, a few dead seals, but never anything like these,” said Israel Paskowitz, 27, a champion surfer whose family runs a surfing school at San Onofre State Park.

The pink and black creatures, some as long as three feet and gooey to the touch, began coming ashore with the rising tide at San Onofre, Doheny State Park and Salt Creek State Park early Friday. About 100 squid were counted at Doheny, and the dead and dying animals were strewn at five-foot intervals along some stretches of San Onofre.

Marine biologists say the marooned animals are the offspring of a large South American variety of squid known as “Jumbo” or “Humbolt” squid, which live off Peru, Chile and Ecuador.

In their natural habitat, adults can get up to 12 feet long, but in local waters they rarely reach more than four feet in length.

The juvenile squid drift north on warm currents from their home waters every 10 to 20 years, said Eric Hochberg, a squid expert and curator of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Sightings in Southern California have been recorded as far back as the 1860s.

“They usually last a couple of years here but don’t reproduce in these waters, so they die out,” Hochberg said.

What kills them, marine biologists say, is, in effect, their own appetites. They feed on sardines and will follow grunion to shore when the grunion come in to spawn.

“They’ll follow them ashore and get too close and get battered by the surf,” Hochberg said. “Then they’ll get sand in their body cavities and one of those two things will kill them.”

On Thursday, squid were reported washing ashore at Ocean Beach in San Diego. But lifeguards at Orange County’s southernmost beaches seemed to be finding the largest concentrations of baby Jumbo squid.

Part of the reason for the squids’ arrival has been this summer’s record high water temperatures, which hovered around 70 degrees Friday, said Fred Roberts, assistant curator of the UC Irvine Museum of Systematic Biology.

In addition, the lack of a prevailing northwest wind and three storms in a row through June and July have left Southern California ocean waters resembling those found in the tropics, Roberts said.

Hochberg said the good news about the squid cluttering the beaches is that they are edible.

“This is the type of squid you will see advertised as abalone-style squid or calamari steaks,” Hochberg said. He cautioned that any squid left too long in the sun should be left alone.

At San Onofre, lifeguards were busy using their break time filleting portions of the baby squid. Lifeguard Shaun Healy, 23, said he was planning an epic barbecue.

“We’ve got 60 pounds of ice on the way and we’re going to cut these guys up and stash them away,” Healy said. “I’ve got at least 30 pounds already. Then we’ll have a giant cookout on the beach.”