Photo: Laura Lee Cascada / The Every Animal Project / We Animals
The race to successfully breed and raise octopuses in captivity to be slaughtered and sold as food has been going on for decades. Would-be octopus farms have repeatedly run into issues, however, ranging from difficulty sourcing food to the octopuses being driven to cannibalism when confined in tightly packed tanks. Despite these obstacles, corporations have pressed on, driven by the increasing popularity of octopus meat. Researchers and advocates point out that octopuses are highly intelligent creatures already recognized as sentient beings in the United Kingdom. Further, it is likely to be impossible to farm them ethically with high welfare standards that provide for their solitary nature and their intellectual abilities, while also maintaining profit margins adequate to sustain a business model.
Every year about 350,000 tons of octopuses are caught wild and sold for food. Most of the octopuses are sold to diners in East Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, though another considerable chunk is also sold to European countries such as Spain and Italy. Currently all of the octopuses consumed are wild-caught, as octopuses are notoriously difficult to keep and are not presently being farmed. Efforts are being made to change that, however, with plans for octopus farms well underway. The move toward farming octopuses is motivated entirely by profit, with various companies identifying the demand for octopus meat and attempting to be the first to successfully create a regular and controlled form of production to meet it. Despite these companies pouring millions of dollars into their startups, a range of problems and difficulties remain.
Octopuses should absolutely not be farmed for several reasons, set out below. Advocates have already urged governments to ban the sale and import of farm-raised octopus due to concern for the cephalopods’ welfare on the farms.
Those who have had the opportunity to work closely with octopuses can attest to their intelligence. Each one has a unique personality, and recently, researchers discovered that some octopuses use their color changes to signal their intentions.
Researchers have cautioned that making a profit from an octopus farm while also providing for the emotional and mental needs of the octopuses may be impossible, due in large part to the solitary nature of most octopus species.
An octopus production farm is unlikely to be able to provide high welfare for octopuses given the many difficulties associated with simply keeping them alive and unharmed in a captive environment. In addition to the territorialism, aggression, and cannibalism often exhibited by octopuses when crowded into tanks, a veterinary journal notes that the biggest challenges are physical trauma, skin infections, sourcing feed, and raising octopuses in their paralarval stages. When bored or stressed, octopuses often dart around their environment, resulting in trauma and ulcers. After injury, their soft, thin skin is prone to secondary infection from bacterial genuses such as Vibrio, Pseudomonas, and Aeromonas, many of which can infect human beings. Stress can even lead these highly complex creatures to self-traumatize, which unfortunately has been extensively documented in captive octopuses.
The evidence for octopus sentience is overwhelming. Research has demonstrated that they are capable of integrating evidence from various sources and are able to learn from past experiences, among many other markers of intelligence. The U.K. government recognized octopuses as sentient animals following the recommendation of a research team at the London School of Economics that evaluated 300 different studies.1
Despite the greenwashing claims made related to octopus aquaculture—for example, that octopus farms are intended to alleviate the strain on wild populations—the reason that people are seeking to start octopus farms is to make money, to capitalize on the fact that octopuses are increasingly consumed as food items in many places around the world.
Octopus farming is still in its tentative stages, but it may be about to explode. Spanish company Nueva Pescanova is the closest to opening an octopus farm, having successfully developed an octopus breeding program following an investment of $74 million. The company spent many months at the research stage to determine how to effectively raise octopuses in farmed conditions, and now plans to keep octopuses in tanks in a 567,000 square foot operation alongside a dock in the Canary Islands. The company claims to be on the verge of launching this aquaculture operation that will eventually produce 3,300 tons of octopuses per year. That’s about one million individual animals they intend produced each year, with 10-15 octopuses sharing every 1.3 cubic yards of tank.
So, octopus farming may be just around the corner. What already happens today is octopus ranching—in which young octopuses are caught from the wild and then kept in tanks until they are old enough to be slaughtered and sold to diners.
There are several reasons why octopus farming would be unethical. Many of them stem from the inherent cruelty in locking an animal as intelligent and solitary as an octopus in a tank for the purpose of growing meat or reproducing.
Many experts believe that having a high welfare octopus farm while making a profit poses insuperable difficulties. Octopuses are highly intelligent; in captivity, octopus well-being requires caretakers to employ a variety of enrichments. Octopuses are solitary animals and frequently grow violent when housed together in tanks or other confined spaces.2 Because the primary driver of modern farming is to make money and produce food on a large scale, octopuses in an aquaculture system are unlikely to be housed separately while also being provided with environments interesting enough to avoid boredom and stress.
Anyone who has seen the 2020 documentary My Octopus Teacher can attest to the intelligence of octopuses. But the unusual abilities of cephalopods are by no means a new discovery, and are supported by great deal of research. One of the most significant summaries is a report issued by researchers at the London School of Economics who evaluated over 300 individual studies and determined that octopuses should be considered sentient beings. The report made waves and resulted in octopuses, other cephalopods, and decapods being recognized as sentient beings under U.K. law.
Over the years a number of octopuses have caught the public eye and impressed the masses with their intelligence and fortitude. Among them is Inky, an escape artist who was kept at the national aquarium in New Zealand. Inky successfully fled his enclosure and disappeared overnight. The aquarium’s staff believe that Inky broke out of his tank, slithered down a 50-metre drainpipe, and returned to the sea.
Farming octopuses presents a variety of physical and psychological challenges for the cephalopods. Octopuses are covered in a mucus that protects their skin and allows them to fit into and through small spaces.3 When this layer is damaged, they can develop infections. They are also prone to extreme, unrelenting boredom and stress behaviors if in a bland or unstimulating environment. When they are stressed, they are also likely to self-harm. Finally, they are prone to eating one another when housed collectively, as most species are solitary animals.
Octopuses are not the only ones that octopus farming stands to negatively impact. Large-scale octopus farming may also deplete fish species (to feed the octopuses), damage local aquatic ecosystems, destroy marine ecosystems, and even drive an increase in pollution. Because octopus farms don’t yet exist, we cannot be sure what impacts they will have. However, we can consider existing aquaculture and the impacts that it is already having on animals and aquatic environments around the world.
Octopuses consume a large amount of food over their lives. Octopuses have at least a 3:1 food conversion ratio, meaning that the weight of fish necessary to sustain one is at least three pounds for every pound an octopus weighs. Feeding farmed octopuses may lead to the further depletion of fish populations in order to feed captive octopus populations, in much the same way that small fish like anchovies risk being overfished to feed farmed salmon.
Diseases may be spread from octopus farms and compromise local populations of octopuses and other aquatic animals. This would be unsurprising given the effects of other aquatic farms.
As with all animal agriculture, there will be byproducts from the farming process. Some of the most prominent pollutants are likely to be nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen pollution causes toxic algal blooms, ocean dead zones, biodiversity loss, and impaired human and animal health. Likewise, phosphorus pollution depletes soils of their richness and leads to eutrophication, degradation of ecosystems and contaminated drinking water.
Octopus farming may cause destruction to marine ecosystems due not only to pollution, but also to the demand placed on marine species processed into octopus food.
So far, we have outlined several reasons why octopuses should not be farmed for food, but this is not the only kind of octopus farming. Recently, a research facility in Hawaii was shut down due to issues with permitting following an investigation. Though octopuses were not successfully being bred for food there, the facility subjected hundreds of octopuses to fatal breeding experiments, and government records show plans for eventually supplying octopuses to the restaurant industry. The facility was shut down in January 2023 because it lacked the permits necessary to house and care for the wild-caught species of octopus it kept in captivity.
Although the octopus farm characterized itself as a research facility, to support itself the facility would catch wild cephalopods, place them in small tanks, and encourage visitors to touch and interact with them. On top of the criticism the facility has faced for their inhumane treatment of animals and inappropriate permits, advocates have argued that it amounted to little more than a petting zoo—that it captured and confined wild animals and then allowed people to interact with them for money.
The main driving force behind attempts to successfully raise octopuses on farms are the more than 350,000 tons of octopus meat currently being consumed around the world, and the growing popularity of the cephalopods as a food item. This is despite the fact that octopuses are extremely intelligent creatures who have been recognized as sentient beings. Further, experts have concluded that breeding, raising, and keeping octopuses on farms while providing adequately for their physical and psychological needs is impossible, due in large part to their tendency to be aggressive when housed in groups and their high intelligence.
Jonathan Birch et al., “Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans” (LSE, November 2021), https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/News-Assets/PDFs/2021/Sentience-in-Cephalopod-Molluscs-and-Decapod-Crustaceans-Final-Report-November-2021.pdf.
Birch et al., “Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans,” https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/News-Assets/PDFs/2021/Sentience-in-Cephalopod-Molluscs-and-Decapod-Crustaceans-Final-Report-November-2021.pdf.
Ashley L. Powell, “Octopus Aquaculture: Welfare Practices and Challenges,” The Canadian Veterinary Journal 63, no. 10 (October, 2022): 1072–1074, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9484201/.