Once you think about an octopus’s world, you may effectively see a curious creature in a fancy undersea atmosphere.
But the truth of life for some octopuses is existence inside a barren tank, inescapably surrounded by people and different octopuses. That is the grim world of octopus farming – and shortly there may very well be new business farms on the horizon.
Lately a Spanish firm introduced its intention to open a brand new industrial octopus farm, with a purpose of manufacturing 3,000 tonnes of octopus a 12 months. This raises big considerations for animal welfare – as a result of there will be little question that octopuses are advanced and clever animals.
Wild octopuses are masters of camouflage, quickly altering their pores and skin patterns to mix in with their backgrounds. Generally they cowl themselves with shells and even carry coconut shells to cover from predators. And they’re well-known escape artists in captivity, in a position to squeeze by way of terribly small areas.
They could actually have a mischievous streak, with frequent stories of octopuses squirting water at unsuspecting guests and caregivers. One octopus in Germany was famend for repeatedly squirting water on the lights, seemingly conscious that this might short-circuit the electrical energy and trigger a commotion.
In a laboratory setting too, they’ve proven themselves adept at fixing mazes and different puzzles to amass a meals reward.
And octopuses should not solely clever. They’re additionally sentient, able to experiencing emotions comparable to ache and pleasure.
We lately produced a report for the UK authorities, after analysing over 300 scientific research. We discovered sturdy proof in favour of sentience in cephalopod molluscs (together with octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) and decapod crustaceans (comparable to crabs and lobsters).
Octopus have totally different moods and will be playful and mischievous.
Vladimir Wrangel/shutterstock
For a lot of scientists, our findings merely reaffirmed what they already believed: that octopuses are aware animals with emotions and interior lives, identical to vertebrates.
For us, all of this sits uneasily with the concept of octopus farming.
Learn extra:
Octopuses are super-smart … however are they aware?
Whereas octopus has lengthy been an occasional menu merchandise for a lot of, demand for octopus meat is rising quickly. And that has led to the proposals to start out farming octopuses on an industrial scale. In addition to Spain, there are related efforts in Mexico, Chile, China and Japan.
Big moral considerations
Octopuses are engaging candidates for business aquaculture, because of their excessive worth, quick development and fast breeding.
However when engaged on our report, we assessed a number of the biggest dangers to the welfare of octopuses, and octopus farming was excessive on our listing. The opportunity of poor welfare is extraordinarily regarding, particularly as there are not any protections for farmed octopus underneath animal welfare laws wherever on the planet.
Octopuses have a number of traits that make them notably ill-suited to intensive farming.
They’re soft-bodied, with pores and skin that damages simply by way of tough dealing with or collisions with tank partitions or furnishings, notably when jetting away from perceived threats – their ordinary escape response. They’re a susceptible animal that prefers to cover and requires shelter to really feel protected.
As solitary animals (with very uncommon exceptions), they’re typically aggressive and territorial, which means they have a tendency to react badly to the corporate of different octopuses, with cannibalism frequent for a lot of octopus species. Stress from overcrowding may even lead octopuses to resort to self-cannibalism – they actually eat their very own arms.
And since they’re behaviourally and cognitively advanced, they require advanced environments that present stimulation and alternatives to carry out pure behaviours.
To make issues worse, there are presently no recognised strategies of humane slaughter for octopus that may be possible at a big business scale. For these causes, we concluded in our report that we have now “very excessive confidence that high-welfare business farming of cephalopods is presently not possible”.
In brief, we had little doubt that it’s a unhealthy concept.
It’s unsustainable too
Proponents of octopus farming declare the follow has environmental advantages. They are saying that it’s a sustainable technique of manufacturing that may scale back stress on wild populations of octopus.
At present, it’s the case that round 350,000 tonnes of untamed octopus are harvested yearly. And if demand continues to extend, this harvest will even be anticipated to rise.
However we’re not satisfied by this declare of sustainability.
One drawback is that octopuses are carnivores, which implies they require fish or different seafood merchandise comparable to fishmeal or fish oil of their eating regimen. These merchandise are nonetheless ceaselessly harvested from the ocean. And as octopuses have a meals conversion ratio of round three to at least one (which means it takes roughly three kilograms of feed to provide one kilogram of octopus), it is a extremely inefficient use of assets.
Lowering consumption of octopus is the sustainable selection – not farming.
YARUNIV Studio/shutterstock
A second drawback is that it isn’t by any means clear that shifting to aquaculture will scale back stress on wild shares. It’s simply as seemingly that octopus farming will merely scale back costs and enhance demand, as has been seen in fish aquaculture.
Learn extra:
Octopus, crabs and lobsters really feel ache – that is how we discovered
So, if we actually need to shield wild octopus populations we have to transfer past a false selection between devastating overfishing and industrialised farming.
The emphasis ought to be on reducing consumption somewhat than on attempting to shift demand from wild to captive shares – and to do this, we have to be cautious of fast fixes comparable to artificially elevating costs. That may result in negative effects, comparable to creating perceived shortage that drives up client need – suppose right here of “luxurious” items comparable to shark fin.
To seek out the most effective methods of profoundly altering our consuming habits, they have to be designed and examined by behaviour change specialists in order that we will robustly shift demand. And there could also be no single answer. Approaches may have to fluctuate throughout totally different cultures and client teams.
