Updated: Feb 23, 2022
Ava Sylvester
22 November 2021
Imagine being taken from your home, having your brain sliced in two then being beaten one hundred times...This is the fate of an octopus that is to be consumed by a human. To kill an octopus, one must slice the nerves (which is their central brain) between the octopus’ eyes. Then, they are prepared and served to humans as a delicacy. The problem with this is that octopuses experience pain at high levels and are extremely intelligent. Intelligence is widely considered to be the ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason. Octopuses possess all of these qualities and display them with high frequency in their daily lives, proven by researchers and volunteers at New England Aquarium who give their octopuses complex puzzle boxes that they flawlessly solve and then remember the solutions (Blasi 3). They have opinions and personalities, and they establish relationships with humans and non-human animals alike. It is also noted that octopus meat is not a requirement in a healthy human diet, and in some cases. Research shows that the torturous processes that octopuses undergo for the perceived benefit of humankind, can physically and mentally be painful to these creatures and therefore, individuals and collectives alike must get better educated to make decisions to not consume or use octopuses for the sake of themselves and for the planet.
The history of octopuses and their capture spans thousands of years, and continues globally to this day. Since the ancient times in AD, many cultures, especially those in Korea, Japan and the Mediterranean countries Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy have consumed and caught octopuses. A popular dish in these countries is San-nakji or 'wriggling octopus’, a meal where they serve live octopus tentacles, including suckers. Not only is this exceedingly torturous to the octopus, six people a year die from asphyxiation from the consumption of San-nakji. The other way to serve octopus, which is fully cooked, is just as anguishing, “A fisherman usually traps an octopus and kills it by slicing a nerve between the eyes. Then he — or in rare cases, she — beats the carcass on a rock up to 100 times to wring out the water.” (Kakissis 4). The practice of catching and preparing octopus varies slightly but the slicing of the nerve between the eyes is invariably the core practice that is still used today.
Octopuses along with their anatomy and physiology are alien in comparison to that of a human, which has spread fear throughout several cultures. Half a billion years ago, octopuses and humans separated on the evolutionary track (Nuwer 1). This has caused both of these species to develop highly complex cognition and consciousness but in two distinct forms that have near to no resemblance to one another. For humans, the foreign and unknown is a haunting and untrustworthy place. Octopuses and other giant cephalopods have been the antagonist of horror films, novels, old folk tales and legends that have terrorized civilizations for centuries. French writer Victor Hugo imagined an encounter with an octopus and wrote in Toilers of the Sea, “The spectre lies upon you; the tiger can only devour you; the devil-fish, horrible, sucks your life-blood away”. Hugo’s seismic horror of his so-called sea-vampire, is not culturally unfounded. The Icelandic legend of a sea monster, strikingly similar to an octopus, gave rise to the myth of the Kraken which has become an icon of western horror. Reports of tentacles of colossal size swallowing ships is still an image that is tattooed on sailors’ arms to this day (Montgomery 6). These enigmatic creatures hiding in their shadowed dens are understandably a cause for fear when there is a lack of understanding and information surrounding them.
Contrary to the media’s malevolent portrayal of octopuses, these animals are actually harmless to humans and most other animals and predominantly benign. Octopuses need to be protected from the brutal treatment of capture and consumption since they are one of the most dynamic and unorthodox species on Earth. The classification that octopuses belong to, Class Cephalopoda, means “head-foot” in Latin. The fascinating anatomical arrangement of an octopus body from end to end--the mantle (torso) then the head and then “legs” (which are actually arms), is nothing short of bizarre. Octopuses are invertebrates, and this body form plus the lack of a shell allows these boneless creatures to squeeze through spaces just large enough for their beak. Laura Geggel in Why the Octopus Lost Its Shell states that octopuses may have lost their shells during the Jurassic or Cretaceous periods. Having no shells allows them to be more agile and escape from predators faster. On the other hand, if they get caught by a predator, they have no hard shell to protect themselves. To defend themselves, octopuses have mastered mimicry and camouflage abilities. They are clever shapeshifters and have been known to disguise themselves as rocks, seaweed and other animals. Sy Montgomery in The Soul of an Octopus states that octopuses can change their color, pattern and texture in a brief 7/10ths of a second. That is roughly up to sixty changes in one minute!
To top these biological phenomena, the inner workings behind an octopus's slippery exterior is astounding. Octopuses have three hearts to provide their bodies with sufficient oxygenated blood in their low oxygen environment (Sranko 9). In addition to that, putting a human’s four cerebral lobes to shame, an octopus can have up to 75 lobes (Montgomery 49). Although an octopus has 300 million neurons, which is hardly close to that of a human’s 100 billion, an octopus’s neurons are distributed throughout the brain and their eight arms (49). This means that an octopus has nine brains made up of clusters of neurons--one in their mantle and the eight others in each of their arms--that all work and process information individually. The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness officially declared that octopuses are the only invertebrate capable of conscious experience (Low 2). To be conscious is to be aware of oneself and to be aware that one is aware. Not only are octopuses self aware, but they are known to have complex personalities, opinions, and changes in mood, and they can develop relationships, learn and make educated choices, and have sophisticated cognitive processing. Therefore, it is improper to keep them in dull and enclosed environments.
Another cause of the issue of exploiting octopuses for human needs is treating them as pets. Distress and self mutilation can be some of the consequences of keeping an octopus as a pet in average conditions (Courage 2). For an octopus to survive in the wild and in captivity, it needs mental stimulation. Octopuses require challenges to benefit what could be considered ‘mental health’. Octopuses are aware of their surroundings and individuals in their population. In one study scientists found that an octopus could recognize other individual octopuses not only by their species but also by their individual traits, and remember them (Tricarico 1). This proves that they have intelligent development and sensitive cognition that could be compromised by being kept in confining tanks as pets when they are not provided the proper simulation in terms of challenges and tools. Wanting to keep these sophisticated and advanced creatures in relatively small tanks stems from the inability of humans to empathize with animals.
Another factor that has worsened this issue is the general lack of ethics and sympathy of humans toward non-human animals. Contrary to previous belief, non-human animals experience empathy. Empathy is the ability to sense what somebody else may be feeling. Although humans have the ability to empathize more deeply than any other animal, how is it possible that one could put a price on another creature’s life, a price on a life that humans aren't even fully aware of its possibilities. For $99.99 you can have someone remove baby octopuses from their cozy dens, shove them into a plastic bag, and deliver them alive to your front door! At Walmart, you can purchase a whole, frozen and “fresh” octopus ready for you to dismantle, cook and then consume for roughly the same price. In a new case study from 2020 that conducted research on human’s attitudes towards certain animals, it states that animals that are part of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) should never be used for any purpose (Bradley 2). Unfortunately, octopuses are not part of this list and so therefore, it is considered permissible to use them (2). Most people included in this case study demonstrated an overall neutrality towards the use of octopuses, which suggests that humans do not feel sufficient empathy towards these beings of high intelligence that recognize and understand when they are trapped or being killed.
An industry that not only harms all species of octopuses but also impacts nearly every aquatic animal and the environment in which they live is overfishing and bycatch. Global commercial fishing vessels catches are 40% bycatch (Keledjian 9). Octopuses are the perfect victims of bycatch since their overwhelming curiosity leads them to get trapped in the nets, and if they are released they often die anyway. Bycatch and overfishing are grave issues for the conservation of octopuses and all other marine life. When one purchases an octopus or a fish from large fisheries, one increases the demand for more commercialized fishing and supports bycatch, which is a further detriment to the marine environment. Fishing for octopus is now becoming a potential hazard for those who consume them. Octopuses inhabit every ocean on the planet and as climate change and human activities rampantly destroy the ocean’s various systems, food being taken from the ocean increases in health risk to humans. It has been proven that octopus eggs accumulate a high amount of metals in a process called bioaccumulation; throughout their life octopuses can accumulate toxins and pollutants since they are top predators (Lacoue-Labarthe 1). When octopus flesh is consumed by humans and non-human animals these bioaccumulated toxins can disrupt the nervous system and endocrine systems, negatively affecting reproduction and development (Dyjak 2). Despite the risks of eating octopus, it is still a delicacy and it is consumed at high value in the modern age. Economic trends of the octopus market are only increasing, which further raises the global demand for these animals.
(Ciércoles 1). Even though there is an ongoing increase in the popularity of consuming these animals, octopus meat is not essential for human survival. There is also a chance that octopuses that have been raised in farms may be unhealthy for human consumption since their cortisol levels, a stress hormone, may spike which can lead to health issues in humans (Lopez). Therefore, there is no valid reason to consume octopuses since their meat is priced at astronomical values, hunting and farming them causes these animals tremendous suffering, and consuming them may compromise human health in several ways.There have been efforts to combat the harvesting of wild octopuses from the ocean for human consumption, including octopus aquaculture (or “farming”). Octopus farming began in the 1960’s in Japan by Kouzo Itami (Root 8). In his small lab, Itami went from 200 paralarval octopuses to 20 in the span of forty days; only nine percent had survived (8). Although the promising first attempt did not result in grand commercial success, octopus aquaculture boomed globally and is still in development to this day. Since then, “Farmed aquatic animals now constitute half of the seafood market in many industrialized countries.” (Jacquet 2.) Although this system was originally thought to be ingenious because it put less strain on marine ecosystems, the consequences that came from this methodology proved that assumption to be wrong. The goal for this solution was sustainability, yet that goal has not been met in the outcomes of farming octopuses. One of the issues that arose is that aquaculture actually puts a greater strain on marine ecosystems since more fish need to be caught to feed these carnivores, which then contributes to overfishing and defeats the purpose of trying to create a ‘sustainable’ system in the first place. Another ongoing issue is that successful farmed production of Octopus vulgaris, the most commonly consumed species of octopus, has not been fully effective and developed; this forces octopuses to undergo additional harsh conditions when aquaculturists conduct further investigations on how to successfully farm them. Although some may consider that the work that has been done had good intentions, the environmental impact and the disregard for the octopuses’ overall health is too much to ignore when considering this as a solution.
Much different than the conditions of farmed octopuses, most aquariums that display octopuses to date have updated their care and provide stimulating environments for the animals so that they can live meaningful and healthy lives. After Toilers of the Sea was published by Victor Hugo in 1866, a French aquarium displayed an octopus for the first time in history. After that, several other aquariums in Europe began to display the ‘devil-fish’ to the public; the Victorians dubbed the sudden obsession with octopuses and squid ‘cephalomania’ after the taxonomic Class to which they belong (Parkinson 3). Since then, aquariums around the world have displayed octopuses to the public and the intriguing curiosity that initially surrounded this tentacled creature has hardly dwindled. By going to an aquarium and getting an engaging experience with an octopus, the person will most likely learn about octopuses and why they need to be protected. The New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts focuses heavily on octopus conservation through education. Not only does the aquarium’s website post articles and updates on octopuses, often there are volunteers or staff by the octopus tank answering questions and engaging with the public (Montgomery 109). This is effective because the effects of interacting with animals that are not seen in daily life can inspire conservation. Zoos and aquariums provide a unique experience that a human would most likely not encounter otherwise, and face to face encounters with rare animals can make one care about protecting the animal and their treatment in captivity and in the wild.
The downfall of conservation through education is that opportunities like getting to visit aquariums and interacting with octopuses are not accessible to everyone. Also, since transitioning to a pandemic world in 2020 there has been less opportunity to go to public locations such as an aquarium. To continue making efforts to protect octopuses, education has continued from the safety of one’s home. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, freediver and filmmaker Craig Foster released My Octopus Teacher on Netflix. This documentary focuses on caring and being a part of the natural world as Foster spends every day for a year and a half with the same individual octopus. The movie sparked conversation and interest globally, and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2021. Pippa Ehrlich, the co-director of the film says that the octopus that Craig Foster develops a friendship with “transforms from an underwater alien into a protagonist that we can really relate to and care about.” (My 5). Watching this film has made viewers more sensitive towards octopuses since they get a personal window into an octopus’ life. Craig created the Sea Change Project in 2012, which focuses on storytelling to protect the oceans, and used it as a tool to further promote conservation after watching My Octopus Teacher. On the Sea Change Project website people can make donations, discover more inspiring stories, and uncover how they can further help the cause of octopus conservation. Megan K. Mueller, the co-director of the Tufts Institute for Human-Animal Interaction says about the message of the film, “if we are feeling more socially connected to animals, we are more likely to advocate for them.” (Walsh 3). This documentary has been a successful attempt at addressing the issue of the use and consumption of octopuses since Craig Foster creates an opportunity for humans to truly empathize with octopuses.
Although there has been a noticeable shift in human perspective in recent years, octopus exploitation for the satisfaction of humans is a multilayered issue that spans far back in time and will not be solved in the blink of an eye. If we foster interest and passion for conservation then it is possible to shift in the right direction and globally regard octopuses as the enthralling species that they are. My initial intrigue towards these animals has turned into deep love that will stick with me, founded by the knowledge that I have gained. By learning about and understanding attempted solutions that combat this issue, I can better comprehend how to best inspire someone enough for them to stop eating octopus. The goal is to have as many people around me as I can be exposed to moving information about these sophisticated animals that will inspire them enough to sign a pledge that I will create, declaring that they will not consume octopus. Beyond that, encouraging people to branch further and spread the word to those around them is a promising challenge. My official “slice of the solution” for this issue is to get three restaurants, either locally in Portland, Maine or elsewhere on the planet, to remove octopus from their menu. Humans are currently in a moment in time where a window of opportunity presents itself. We have the opportunity to avoid the same mistakes that have been made in the past in terms of catching, farming, using, and consuming animals. Fulfilling society’s hungry demand for octopuses through fishing and farming, retrogresses the modern world and does nothing to develop the wellbeing of the planet and its inhabitants. With this “slice of the solution” I am aware that it is disrespectful to tell someone to change their culture, and in the same way apathetic and cruel to tell someone that they are not allowed to feed their children. Having said that, I expect change to come. I expect the human race to practice empathy and protect the planet that they live on and to help make the case against the use and consumption of octopuses even stronger.
Works Cited
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