We believe the opening of the world's first octopus farm, scheduled for 2023 in the Canary Islands, will repeat tragic animal welfare mistakes with sentient marine creatures, and also threatens to create unsustainable food sources by plundering oceans for required octopus food. Washington's legislature needs to think ahead and ban imports of farmed octopus, as well as octopus farms. WA Representative Amy Walen is introducing legislation in the 2023 session that will do just that.
A 2021 report by researchers with the London School of Economics pored over 300 studies and came to the conclusion that octopuses are sentient creatures, thus prompting the UK government to recently recognize their sentience in law. The LSE report found that "high-welfare octopus farming is "impossible" and suggested that the UK consider banning imports of farmed octopuses, as well as a pre-emptive ban on octopus farming. Octopuses are highly intelligent, curious, problem-solving animals who 'exhibit cognitive and behavioral complexity, and they appear capable of pain and suffering' (Issues in Science and Technology, 'The Case Against Octopus Farming, Winter 2019).
Most of the few hundred known octopus species are largely asocial creatures in the wild, with their own territories, and intensive farming practices would cruelly force these animals into confined spaces with many other octopuses. We've seen this lead to cannibalism, attacks on cellmates, and ripped off limbs in other species. Current slaughter methods include clubbing, cutting into the octopus' brain, or suffocating them.
Octopus catches rose by 720% from 1950-1990 and are now in decline, but farming will not necessarily prevent fishing. Increasing supplies could even boost demand.
Farming a species that eats 2-3 times its weight in seafood over its lifetime will threaten marine conservation and violate UN Sustainable Development Goals.
A recently proposed aquaculture program in Spain aims to kill 275,000 octopus per year.
This is Washington's chance to prevent damaging and unethical supply chains from evolving and showcase our state as one focused on achieving humane treatment of our fellow residents of Earth.
