Having considered Humboldt squid consumption from the public (human) health perspective, let's try judging it for environmental health.
If Humboldts are truly an invasive species, then it should be good for the environment to eat them. They seem to like eating a lot of the same fish that humans do, so their invasion provides unwelcome competition. Some folks are thinking it might not be a bad idea to open a commerical fishery for Humboldts, just to reduce their ecological (and economical) impact!
Maybe so--from California northwards. But in Mexico, Central and South America, Humboldts are not invasive. They are a native species, a natural part of the ecosystem. And they are supporting the largest invertebrate fishery in the world, which lands close to a million tons of squid a year.
The same features that make squid weedy--short lifespan, quick reproduction, ecological generalists--also make for good sustainability potential in their fisheries. But that's just potential. No taxon, as far as I can tell, is immune to overfishing, and the less we know about their biology, the riskier the fishing business.
Unfortunately, our biological knowledge of Humboldts is quite limited. One example: we still don't know where to find the enormous numbers of baby squid that must be growing up into eight hundred thousand tons of squid a year.
At the moment, no one is actually worried about overfishing Humboldt squid--it looks like an inexhaustible resource if ever there was one. But there was a time when no one worried about overfishing whales, either.
