Washington state takes up arms against octopus farming

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Hurts our environment & causes suffering,”  says lawmaker.

OLYMPIA, Washington––“Octopuses in Washington to remain in their little hideaways beneath the waves,  safe from farming,”  bannered Washington state representative Strom Peterson in a March 13,  2024 media release,  after Washington governor Jay Inslee inked Peterson’s House Bill 1153 into law,  to take effect on June 13,  2024.

“Octopus farming hurts our environment and causes suffering for octopuses,” continued Peterson,  “and it is well past time to prohibit this callous practice,”  which actually has yet to start in Washington,  or anywhere else on a successful commercial basis,  but has so far attracted enough moneyed suckers,  also known as aquaculture investors,  to be a threat.

Washington State Representative Strom Peterson.
(Washington State House Democrats photo)

“Octopuses should be able to shout”

“Octopuses should be able to shout and swim about the coral that lies beneath the waves,” Peterson gushed on,  apparently unaware that octopuses,  unlike politicians,  cannot shout.

That may be a big part of why octopuses are at risk from commercial exploitation.

“They shouldn’t be confined to pens. There should be no one there to tell them what to do,”   Peterson said,  sounding a bit like a libertarian Republican.

Both Peterson,  actually a Democrat representing Edmonds,  a northern Seattle suburb alongside Puget Sound,  and Inslee,  a fellow Democrat,  may remember the regional hullabaloo that erupted in November 2012 after Federal Way dive instructor Bob Bailey photographed spearfisher Dylan Mayer,  then 19,  in the act of heaving a dead giant Pacific octopus into the back of his pickup truck at Cove 2 in West Seattle.

“The story went viral, lighting up divers’ blogs and generating hundreds of emails,”  recalled Seattle Times environment writer Lynda V. Mapes.

Matilda the octopus eats reporter at the Seattle Aquarium.  (Beth Clifton photo)

Giant Pacific octopuses lurk in Seattle

A succession of giant Pacific octopuses,  each held for about a year after capture under permit from the Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife,  have long been among the most popular animals at the Seattle Aquarium,  opened in 1977 on a pier on the downtown waterfront,  a short walk from the famed Space Needle.

“When the octopuses show signs that they’re mature and ready to mate—typically after a stay of 12 months or so—our divers return them to their original collection location so they can complete their life cycles and reproduce,”  the Seattle Aquarium says.

But at least once a giant Pacific octopus found her own way back to the wild,  popping off a tank filter and squeezing through a succession of pipes to reach Elliot Bay.

(Beth Clifton collage)

World’s wealthiest populations

There may be nowhere else in the world where harming an octopus would draw the intensity of negative response that it does in and around Seattle,  even as restaurants within blocks of the Seattle Aquarium continue to sell the octopus meat dishes that have would-be octopus farmers around the world eager to dip their tentacles into the water.

“Long consumed across the Mediterranean and parts of Asia, as well as Mexico, octopus meat has been growing in popularity globally,  as the world’s wealthiest populations embrace octopus-laden sushi,  poke and tapas,”  explained Ashifa Kassam for The Guardian on June 25,  2023.

“Much of the demand has so far been met by wild stocks,”  Kassam reported.  “Between 1950 and 2015 the catch of wild octopuses increased more than tenfold to an estimated 400,000 tons.”

(Pierre Denys de Montfort,  1801)

“Huge win for animals & the planet!”

“Washington became the first state to prohibit farming octopuses!  This is a huge win for animals and the planet,”  exulted Mercy for Animals,  after sending senior state policy manager Alex Cerussi to testify for the Peterson bill before the Washington state legislature.

“Octopus possess the ability to experience pain,  stress, and fear,”  Cerussi told the Washington lawmakers.  “All animals with these capacities deserve to be protected.

“Just like other forms of factory farming, octopus farming entails raising animals for slaughter in crowded spaces with little room to move.  This is especially cruel for octopuses,  as these solitary, territorial animals naturally avoid one another and prefer to live in dark,  quiet places,”  Cerussi said.

“In an analysis published in Science & Technology,”  Cerussi added,  “a team of researchers concluded that farming octopuses would harm both the environment and animals.”

Octopus’s garden.  (Beth Clifton collage)

“Repeating mistakes made on land”

Cerussi quoted study coauthor Jennifer Jacquet,  who concluded that “Mass producing octopus would repeat many of the same mistakes we made on land in terms of high environmental and animal welfare impacts.”

The British-based organization Compassion In World Farming had already been trying to head off octopus farming at the water pipe since 2021.

Compassion In World Farming enjoyed a noteworthy success in January 2023,  when the Kanaloa Octopus Farm on the Big Island of Hawaii was closed by order of the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources,  after seven years in operation.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Visitors put their hands in the tanks”

An initial Compassion In World Farming investigation was followed up by The Guardian,  Sentient Media,  the Harvard Law School Animal Law & Policy Clinic,  and especially by Suzanne Rust of the Los Angeles Times and Timothy Hurley of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“Situated on land owned and operated by the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority,”  described Rust on December 20,  2022,  “the Kanaloa Octopus Farm bills itself as a research institute designed to help tease apart the secrets of the day octopus’ reproductive cycle.”

“Right now pretty much every octopus you have ever seen — whether it is the ones you see here today, in an aquarium or even on your dinner plate — have all been wild caught,”  Kanaloa octopus farm biologist and tour guide Carmelle Joyner told Rust.  “There is no method for raising octopus in captivity. This means that we are taking them all from our oceans and our reefs. … We are hopeful that if we can figure out how to raise them here,  our research can be used to apply to other places to help out their natural population.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Illegal for years”

Earlier,  Kanaloa Octopus Farm founder Jake Conroy told National Geographic that the outcome of his “petting zoo” business was that,  “Nine times out of ten we wind up convincing people not to eat octopus.”

Updated Hurley on January 23,  2023,  after the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources ordered the Kanaloa Octopus Farm to close,  “Inga Gibson,  a marine consultant and policy director with Pono Advocacy LLC,”  and former Hawaii state director for the Humane Society of the United States,  “said she had been urging the Division of Aquatic Resources for more than five months to take action.

“The octopus farm has been illegal for years,”  Gibson alleged to Hurley.

“Instead of helping populations of octopus, they are hindering these animals from repopulating,”   Gibson charged.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Canary Islands scheme

Animal Concern Scotland in 2023 pronounced itself “horrified to learn of an octopus farm planned for the Canary Islands,”  joining Compassion In World Farming among  “many animal welfare groups speaking out against it,  signing and sharing petitions to stop this cruel form of farming these highly intelligent creatures.

“We also wrote to the then-Secretary of State of the Department for Environment,  Food & Rural Affairs, Thérèse Coffey,  to demand that no farmed octopus be imported into the United Kingdom,”   Animal Concern Scotland said.

Guardian writer Ashifa Kassam in her June 25,  2023 exposé of octopus farming summarized most of what is known about the Canary Islands project,  in development for more than five years.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“International flashpoint”

“The company’s vision for a farm that could eventually provide up to 3,000 tons of octopus meat a year – requiring the slaughter of about one million octopus vulgaris – came into public view in 2021 when it applied for permits,”  Kassam recalled.

“The planned farm has since become an international flashpoint,”  Kassam observed,  “pitting the company and other proponents of octopus farming against those who argue that the solitary,  intelligent animals are ill-suited to being farmed.

“From Mumbai to Mexico City,”  Kassam said,  “protesters have mobilized,  adding their voice to the more than 100 academics who contend that farming a carnivorous animal known to be curious,  affectionate,  and exploratory would be unethical and environmentally unsustainable.

“The decades-long push to farm octopus has played out in parallel with a growing interest in octopus research,”  Kassam noted,  “offering a deeper understanding of an animal once described as ‘probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.’”

My Octopus Teacher movie poster

Nueva Pascanova

Nueva Pescanova,  the company developing the two-story octopus farm in Las Palmas,  Gran Canaria,  claims to have bred five generations of octopuses in captivity,  along the way breeding out their proclivity to fight and cannibalize each other when housed in close proximity,  and to escape from almost any container.

This is achieved in part by raising the octopuses in darkness,  in tanks “void of any kind of cognitive stimulus,”  Kassam reported.

This,  observed Kassam,  “flies in the face of what is known about octopus vulgaris, argues Jennifer Mather,  a professor at University of Lethbridge,  in Alberta, Canada,  who served as the scientific adviser on the Oscar-winning film My Octopus Teacher.

(See “My Octopus Teacher” meets the Kraken.)

“If they have somehow or another managed to selectively breed calm octopuses,  where’s their data?” asked Mather.

Nueva Pescanova hopes to begin killing octopuses “using baths of ice flakes” and marketing their flesh by the end of 2024,  Kassam was told.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Farmed for lab use

The Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole,  Massachusetts has already been “raising thousands of octopuses,  cuttlefish and their kin” since 2016 “as part of the Cephalopod Program, an initiative to transform these sea creatures into the next lab animals,”  Washington Post writer Ben Guarino reported on March 2,  2019.

“Cephalopods ooze scientific appeal: They have complex bodies,  unusual genetics, impressive spatial skills and intelligent minds,”  Guarino enthused,  “yet can be reluctant to breed, hard to raise,  and difficult to keep from escaping their tanks.  Few laboratory protocols — and,  in the United States,  no legal regulations — offer guidance.”

Beth & Merritt Clifton

Now Washington state offers some guidance:  don’t do it.

Will other states follow?  Will whole nations?

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