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Octopus farming is becoming increasingly popular due to the rising global demand for this mollusc. Nueva Pescanova, a food processing corporation, plans to build the world’s first indoor octopus farm in Gran Canaria, which will produce 3,000 tons of octopus a year. Octopuses can gain up to 5% of their body weight in a day, making them an attractive prospect for aquaculture. However, they are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity. Nueva Pescanova claims to have made a scientific breakthrough that will allow them to raise successive generations of Atlantic common octopus, reducing the need for fishing methods such as sea-bed trawling and relieving pressure on wild fishing grounds.
Consumers must consider the costs and benefits of eating farmed fish and marine animals. While organized systems may reduce the risk of overfishing, fish farms and other forms of aquaculture can pollute coastal waters with pharmaceuticals and feces. Additionally, confining sentient creatures to industrial food systems raises serious moral concerns.
Octopuses are particularly intelligent and playful creatures, making them unsuited to a life in captivity and mass-production. Animal rights activists argue that farming octopuses will induce needless suffering on an unprecedented scale. Researchers at Dartmouth College have studied how octopuses experience reality in a specialist lab, raising concerns about the proposed methods of slaughter by Nueva Pescanova, which involves placing octopuses into an ice slurry to reduce their temperature to the point of death. This method may not be appropriate for a species that has a sophisticated capacity for processing information, rudimentary tool use, complex visual pathways, and the capacity for pain.
Similar criticisms have been made in relation to large-brained and sentient species, including cows and pigs. The UK parliament debated this issue, resulting in the formal recognition of the sentience of many species, including crabs, lobsters, and octopuses, within the 2022 Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act.
2023-03-28 04:00:03
Article from phys.org