U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) reintroduced the OCTOPUS Act (Opposing the Cultivation and Trade of Octopus Produced through Unethical Strategies Act). The legislation aims to ban commercial octopus farming in the U.S. while also prohibiting imports of commercially farmed octopus.
Originally introduced on July 25, 2024 and widely supported and endorsed by the scientific community including the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums), the senators are pushing hard for passage of this bipartisan bill. The octopus is well regarded for being intelligent and sentient animals. In public aquariums, they’re provided with “enrichment” for cognitive stimulation just like mammals are. They are often challenged with problem solving tasks where they use their brains, bodies, and tools to navigate around and solve these puzzles, seemingly with ease. They also remember and learn from prior experiences, enabling them to breeze through similar challenges. Octopuses are likely capable of having feelings such as pain, pleasure, sadness, and excitement.
Currently, no commercial octopus farms exist in the U.S. or internationally. So why the sudden outrage? In 2021, the Nueva Pescanova Group, a Spanish seafood company, announced they had successfully aquacultured octopuses and were planning on building the world’s first octopus farm. Due to outrage from the scientific community and general public, the plans slowed, and it’s currently awaiting approval. Due to the growing demand for octopus meat, if approved, it could start the domino effect of octopus aquaculture facilities around the world.
If passed, the Act would preemptively:
- Prohibit commercial octopus aquaculture operations in the U.S.;
- Prohibit the import of commercially farmed octopus or products containing commercially farmed octopus and impose fines for violations
- Require importers to certify that they are not importing farmed octopus
- Require NOAA to collect data on octopus harvest methods in trade programs under its jurisdiction
But are the senators truly concerned about octopuses or is there something else at play? I’m always weary of politicians, especially when it comes to something that seems so straightforward. Murkowski represents Alaska, which has a very large fishing industry, so it’s in her best interest to protect commercial fishing rather than farming. As she put it herself “by closing the door on commercial octopus farming, this legislation not only helps sustain wild harvest opportunities for Alaska’s fishermen, it helps protect Alaska’s marine ecosystems.”
But if they’re proposing a good bill, does it even matter that they’re protecting commerce? On the flip side, if the demand is growing, by restricting farming, aren’t we encouraging overfishing, thus putting the wild octopus population at risk?
So, octopuses are too intelligent and sentient to be farmed, but not smart or sentient enough to not be eaten. It seems to me that if you conclude that farming them would be inhumane due to their intelligence, then killing them for consumption would also lean that direction. Isn’t that exactly why we don’t eat dogs and cats in the U.S.? What do you think?
Follow the progress of the bill here.
And download the full bill here.
