The reality of life for some octopuses is existence within a barren tank, inescapably surrounded by humans and other octopuses. This is the bleak world of octopus farming – and soon there could be new commercial farms on the horizon.
A Spanish company announced its intention to open a new industrial octopus farm, with a goal of producing 3,000 tonnes of octopus a year. This raises huge concerns for animal welfare – because there can be no doubt that octopuses are complex and intelligent animals.
Wild octopuses are masters of camouflage, rapidly changing their skin patterns to blend in with their backgrounds. Sometimes they cover themselves with shells or even carry coconut shells to hide from predators. And they are well-known escape artists in captivity, able to squeeze through extraordinarily small spaces.
They may even have a mischievous streak, with frequent reports of octopuses squirting water at unsuspecting visitors and caregivers. One octopus in Germany was renowned for repeatedly squirting water at the lights, seemingly aware that this would short-circuit the electricity and cause a commotion.
And octopuses are not only intelligent. They are also sentient, capable of experiencing feelings such as pain and pleasure.
We recently produced a report for the UK government, after over 300 scientific studies. We found strong evidence in of sentience in cephalopod (including octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) and crustaceans (such as crabs and lobsters).
For many scientists, our findings merely reaffirmed what they already believed: that octopuses are conscious animals with feelings and inner lives, just like vertebrates.
While octopus has long been an occasional menu item for many, demand for octopus meat is growing rapidly. And that has led to the proposals to start farming octopuses on an industrial scale. As well as Spain, there are similar efforts in Mexico, Chile, China and Japan.
Octopuses are attractive candidates for commercial aquaculture, due to their high value, fast growth and rapid breeding.
But when working on our report, we assessed some of the greatest risks to the welfare of octopuses, and octopus farming was high on our list. The possibility of poor welfare is extremely concerning, especially as there are no protections for farmed octopus under animal welfare legislation anywhere in the world.
Octopuses have several characteristics that make them particularly ill-suited to intensive farming.
They are soft-bodied, with skin that damages easily through rough handling or collisions with tank walls or furniture, particularly when jetting away from perceived threats – their usual escape response. They are a vulnerable animal that prefers to hide and requires shelter to feel safe.
As solitary animals (with very rare exceptions), they are often aggressive and territorial, meaning they tend to react badly to the company of other octopuses, with cannibalism common for many octopus species. Stress from overcrowding can even lead octopuses to resort to self-cannibalism – they literally eat their own arms.
And since they are and cognitively complex, they require complex environments that provide stimulation and opportunities to perform natural.
To make matters worse, there are currently no methods of humane slaughter for octopus that would be feasible at a large commercial scale. For these reasons, we concluded in our report that we have “very high confidence that high-welfare commercial farming of cephalopods is currently impossible”.
In short, we had little doubt that it is a bad idea.
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