Nature & Environment

Concerns surround plans for world's first octopus farm

By T.K. Randall
February 25, 2022 ·  11 comments

Is octopus farming really a good idea ? Image Credit: PD - Pseudopanax The proposed farm, which has been spurred on by the growing global cephalopod trade, is being planned by Spanish aquaculture company Nueva Pescanova.

While the idea does have some merit, it has also been met with a significant degree of criticism, not least due to the potential ecological, environmental and ethical concerns of such a project.

Octopuses tend to prefer live prey - which would make feeding them problematic - and they also tend to become aggressive when kept in captivity, even going so far as to mutilate themselves.They are also particularly good at escaping, which would make containing them a real challenge.

On the ethical side, recent studies have indicated that octopuses could be quite intelligent and are capable of not only solving basic puzzles, but also of feeling emotions.

As such, some countries have extended special protections to octopuses around the world.

Even so, these tasty cephalopods are very much in demand, with some 380,000 tons being traded each year and that figure is likely to nearly double by 2025.

Whether or not we should be farming octopuses (or even eating them at all), however, remains a matter of debate.

Source: Science Alert | Comments (11)

Tags: Octopus