Octopus farming turns my stomach – but are some species really more worthy than others?

The collective noun for a bunch of octopuses, in case you had been questioning, is a consortium – not, as some wags may inform you, a seafood buffet.

I actually don’t eat octopus, and have made a variety of noise about why: they’re as sensible as parrots, their mind is unfold over their arms, they’re many hundreds of thousands of years older than we’re – don’t you recognize that, of all of the species on Earth, solely they and we share a high-resolution digicam eye?

So it was with no pleasure that I learn that plans for the world’s first-ever business octopus farm look like progressing. A proposal has been submitted to authorities within the Canary Islands for a facility in Las Palmas that will produce 3,000 tonnes of octopus every year for export.

Based on paperwork seen by the BBC, the corporate Nueva Pescanova proposes elevating 1 million animals in round 1,000 communal tanks – night out to 10 to fifteen octopuses per cubic metre, or 80-120 legs.

Personally, I don’t see them going quietly. Previous makes an attempt to farm octopuses have failed as a result of (together with challenges feeding the larvae) they’ve proved just too unwieldy to include. They will squeeze themselves by way of any gap that may match their beak, which is concerning the width of a 50p coin. They aren’t solely dextrous, however sturdy, able to opening screw-top jars and lifting heavy tank lids. They will additionally survive as much as half an hour out of water: lengthy sufficient to make a touch for it by way of a drainpipe.

Scientists have struggled to maintain even one or two people in captivity with out being outwitted. A proposal to accommodate 1 million, then, reads extra like considered one of Kafka’s aphorisms than a real-life marketing strategy (“A tank went in quest of a cephalopod”).

However even when it does show attainable to farm octopuses, the query is – ought to we?

There isn’t an apparent want. Relative to many marine species, octopuses are adapting shortly to the altering oceans, and there appears no rapid threat of overfishing. Farming could be extra of a toll on the atmosphere, inflicting each poisonous run-off into native waters and extra fish to be caught for meals – plus it’s inevitably extra merciless.

Fishers dispatch of their octopus catch with a membership to the pinnacle or a knife to the central mind: instantaneous, however not very scalable. Nueva Pescanova proposes killing its octopuses by immersing them in water saved at -3C. A 2009 examine of this “reside chilling” of farmed turbot discovered it to be “extremely questionable”, inflicting stress and doubtlessly extreme ache earlier than dying.

Even for fish, it’s an undeniably grisly course of – however, in fact, the rationale that persons are up in arms over farming of octopus, and never turbot, is due to the creatures’ intelligence. It’s lengthy been understood that octopuses are among the many smartest of animals, named alongside dolphins, crows and apes. In captivity, they’ve proven themselves able to navigating mazes, finishing advanced duties and even recognising particular person people. The Oscar-winning Netflix documentary My Octopus Instructor additional impressed on audiences their exceptionalism.

A shot from the movie My Octopus Instructor (2020), a few man’s unlikely friendship with a typical octopus. {Photograph}: Everett Assortment Inc/Alamy

Seven years after publicising my very own stance on the topic, I nonetheless don’t eat cephalopods. However my pondering has expanded: I’m not certain that an animal being clever is an effective cause to not eat it.

Even prior to now decade, we’ve come a good distance in understanding what animals are able to – together with ones we have now systematically underestimated. Each new Attenborough sequence captures some astonishing behaviour that has by no means been seen earlier than, and never simply within the traditional suspects, the orcas and macaws – however amongst fish, birds and even bugs.

It’s changing into more and more apparent that the very idea of “animal intelligence” is fraught, judged as it’s by human requirements. Instrument use has been a historic measure, for instance – however that favours animals with palms or beaks. Solely comparatively lately have scientists accepted that fish invent instruments, making them arguably extra resourceful than animals of nice dexterity.

Squid and cuttlefish could also be as sensible as octopuses, their shut relations, however simply missing the arms to point out it off. As one scientist put it final yr: “If folks studied mantis shrimps the way in which they examine octopuses, they’d be actually blown away at how sensible they’re.” It simply goes to point out that we privilege these species we are able to see ourselves in, or care sufficient to check.

Even our definitions of sentience will be ridiculously arbitrary: octopuses are nonetheless not included below US animal welfare legal guidelines as a result of they’re invertebrates, which means they lack a spine. The UK authorities recognised octopuses, crabs and lobsters as sentient beings in November 2021 – however with no change to fishing practices or in restaurant kitchens. The legislation recognises that lobsters can really feel ache, but it surely’s nonetheless not against the law to boil them alive.

It simply goes to point out how self-congratulatory our pondering on animal intelligence will be: favouring these species that we discover distinctive, or relatable, however hardly ever in a manner that does them any good. There are actual prices to this human superiority advanced for us, too, as evinced by the current pandemic and the existential risk of the local weather disaster.

I’m satisfied that the trail ahead shouldn’t be making exceptions for octopuses, and different species that we deem worthy, however prioritising an inhabitable Earth for all of us. The arc of the ethical universe is unquestionably bending in direction of much less exploitation of dwelling beings, much less web struggling – no matter their intelligence.

That appears like multinational companies similar to Nueva Pescanova taking duty for what seems to be increasingly like merciless and polluting manufacturing facility farming; governments such because the authorities within the Canary Islands rejecting such farms of their jurisdictions; and people consuming higher-quality meat, and fewer of it total – and octopus solely when it’s been domestically caught.

A prerequisite to dwelling sustainably is a way of proportion; an understanding of ourselves as simply one other life kind on the planet. Now we have been lucky to get pleasure from a Homo sapiens supremacy for a lot of hundreds of thousands of years – however, heaven forbid, ought to it ever be upended, I hope we all know higher than to look to proficiency with instruments because the take a look at of acceptable struggling.

This text by Elle Hunt was first revealed by The Guardian on 30 March 2023. Lead Picture: ‘I’m not certain that an animal being clever is an effective cause to not eat it.’ {Photograph}: Tammy616/Getty Pictures.


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