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ARCHIVED - Spain tries to build first commercial octopus farm in the world amid fierce opposition
The planned octopus farm in the Canary Islands, the first of its kind in the world, is accused of being cruel and unsustainable
Spanish seafood company Nueva Pescanova is planning to build the world’s first commercial octopus farm to start marketing farmed octopuses by the summer of 2022 and to start selling them in 2023.
The proposed farm in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands will keep thousands of octopi in captivity with little or no transparency or oversight, because the legal framework to oversee such a venture is non-existent since this will be the first large-scale, intensive octopus farm ever built.
Octopus is a delicacy in Spanish cuisine, and is often one of the more expensive dishes on the menu because of the relative difficulty of octopus fishing. If intensive octopus farming is successful, octopus is likely to become more affordable.
The move has garnered fierce criticism from many corners, with campaigners organising a ‘Tweetstorm’ last February 5 with the hashtag #FreeOctopus to lobby Las Palmas Town Hall to reverse their decision to allow this farm to go ahead.
Octopuses can use tools, have short & long term memory, collaborate with other species to hunt & have individual personalities.
— Compassion in World Farming (@ciwf) February 5, 2022
Plans by @PescanovaCorp to start farming octopus in Spain must not go ahead! 👎
Join the twitterstorm, tweet using #FreeOctopus pic.twitter.com/3FLilyhqdm
Octopi are highly intelligent animals that use tools in their natural environment, like humans and apes, and are capable of feeling pleasure, pain and distress, as shown in the popular Netflix documentary ‘My Octopus Teacher’. The decision to allow commercially farmed octopus has been branded “immoral, unsustainable, ecologically unjustifiable, and has no place in a developed society”.
Octopus farming has existed for years, but never on the commercial scale the Nueva Pescanova intends. Scientists have been developing new ways to breed, feed and slaughter captive octopuses, and most published research on octopus farming has been produced by the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, sometimes sponsored by Nueva Pescanova, which then bought patents on new techniques.
In order to develop its new, more efficient form of octopus farming, Nueva Pescanova is seeking funding from the European Union’s Next Generation Fund, which invests billions of euros in the economic recovery from the effects of coronavirus while building “a greener, more digital and more resilient future”.
Octopuses are intelligent, capable of feeling pleasure, pain & distress. The idea that we should 'farm' them has no place in civilised society.
— Animal Welfare Party (@AnimalsCount) February 5, 2022
AWP supports @PartidoPACMA & all showing opposition to Octopus Farming in #GranCanaria today. #FreeOctopus. Pls RT@AyuntamientoLPA pic.twitter.com/m4fnH1nedd
However, it has been shown time and again that intensive animal farming frequently pollutes the local environment and has more far-reaching consequences, too.
A recent study has found that octopus farming will harm the marine environment by putting pressure on wild fish populations that are caught to feed the captive octopi. The researchers also pointed out that such highly intelligent, sentient and asocial creatures as octopi would fare very poorly in a farm environment.
In the UK, there are no octopus farms but the government is already considering a pre-emptive ban on the practice and “a ban on imported farmed octopuses” based on a further study by the London School of Economics that found octopi, as well as other cephalopods and decapod crustaceans, are sentient beings.
Furthermore, the report found that, given this fact and the conditions inside intensive farms, “high-welfare octopus farming is impossible” and the practice should be outlawed.
Octopus are extremely intelligent and have been known to use seashells for protection, steal food from traps set by fishers, escape from aquariums, and even decorate their homes ðŸ™#FreeOctopus pic.twitter.com/oxugDqU08c
— PETA UK (@PETAUK) February 5, 2022
Image: Archive
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