Why octopus farming is an ethical disaster waiting to happen

In September 2020, while much of the world was living through COVID-19 lockdowns, a quiet Netflix documentary unexpectedly captured global attention. My Octopus Teacher followed a filmmaker’s year-long relationship with a wild octopus in a South African kelp forest.

At a time when many of us were feeling isolated and fragile, the story of trust, resilience, and connection between a human and an octopus struck a deep chord. We saw the octopus demonstrate curiosity, resilience, even trust. We watched her problem-solve, play, and display behaviours that felt hauntingly familiar, especially her heartbreaking goodbye hug. 

Viewers were reminded that the ocean is full of lives as vivid and valuable as our own.

And yet, at the very moment when public awareness of octopus intelligence has never been higher, a Spanish seafood company, Nueva Pescanova, is pushing forward with plans to open the world’s first commercial octopus farm. 

The idea, which was initially made public in 2022, is being sold as innovation. In truth, it is an ethical catastrophe waiting to happen.

Who octopuses really are

Among our animal kin, cephalopods stand out as some of evolution’s most astonishing expressions of intelligence and adaptability, and octopuses may be the most captivating of them all. 

With three hearts, blue blood, and the ability to taste with their arms, they already defy human expectations of what “life” looks like. Their nervous system is extraordinary: two-thirds of their neurons are in their arms. Each arm can operate semi-independently, yet all are linked to a central brain capable of integrating experience. 

Even though they’re colour blind, they can perfectly mimic the colour and texture of their environment for the purpose of camouflage and can even regenerate a lost limb.

As philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith wrote in Other Minds, meeting an octopus is “the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien”. 

But it’s the idea that octopuses are in some way “alien”, plus their camouflage and regenerative abilities, that makes them so vulnerable to exploitation. 

As explored by Dr Lori Marino of Sentient Media, octopuses live, suffer and die as terminal research test subjects in laboratories throughout the world. The people who use them have historically viewed them as so physically different from humans that they must be emotionally different too. 

Recent discoveries challenge this. They show that, far from being “aliens”, octopuses are simply another form of evolved life on Earth, and that they are highly intelligent, complex, and live emotionally rich lives. Again, in Other Minds, Godfrey-Smith describes them as “uncannily personable without being at all human”.

Intelligence, personality, and emotion – individuals in barren tanks

Sadly, most stories about octopus’ personalities and capabilities come from research labs, but they raise fundamental questions about the ethics of keeping these sentient beings in captivity.

Scientists have documented octopuses solving complex puzzles, unscrewing jars to reach food, and escaping aquariums with a Houdini-like flair. In one lab, Otto the octopus learned to squirt water at a specific light to cause a food reward and later used the same trick to short-circuit an annoying lamp. 

In another lab, one octopus would wait until night-time to escape their tank, move to a neighbouring tank, eat all the fish in it, and then return to the original tank to hide the evidence. 

In 2019, Luna the octopus went viral after she was filmed repeatedly spitting water at a Marine Scientist, a PhD student called Harry Allard, every time he moved too close to her tank. This is a defence mechanism that clearly expressed Luna’s need to create distance between herself and the researcher.

Repeatedly, octopuses demonstrate curiosity, boredom, playfulness, even decision-making influenced by emotion. A 2021 review commissioned by the UK government examined over 300 scientific studies and concluded there is “very strong evidence” that octopuses are sentient beings who experience pain, distress, and pleasure. This evidence was so compelling that the UK’s Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act now explicitly recognises cephalopods.

It should go without saying that farming beings like this is not progress. It’s a profound moral failure.

Why octopus farming is being proposed

Octopus flesh is considered a delicacy in many parts of the world, especially across the Mediterranean, Asia, and Latin America. 

Global demand has risen sharply in recent decades, with annual catches estimated at over 350,000 tonnes. This demand has put huge pressure on free-living populations, many of which are already in decline due to overfishing and climate-driven changes in the oceans. 

Rather than rethinking consumption, the seafood industry’s answer has been to explore farming, an attempt to industrialise octopus production in the same way fishes, pigs, and chickens have been commodified. 

The context is important: farming is not being driven by necessity, but by a desire to maintain and expand a lucrative market, regardless of the cost to our animal kin or to the oceans.

The arguments being used to drive octopus farming — and why they don’t hold up

Industry leaders use these pressures as justification for farming, claiming it’s the answer to overfishing and a route to ‘sustainable seafood’, but when we look closely, those arguments don’t hold up.

“Farming will reduce wild capture”

It takes three kilos of fishes to produce just one kilo of octopus’ flesh. Far from easing the burden on natural populations, farming increases it by redirecting fishes into feed. Yes, they might not harvest as many octopuses in their natural environments, but fishes populations will certainly be plundered.

“It will create jobs and profits”

At what cost? If profit alone justifies cruelty, then no act of exploitation is off-limits. 

“It’s sustainable seafood”

There is nothing sustainable about multiplying pressure on marine ecosystems, producing mountains of waste, and fuelling demand for yet more animal exploitation. Sustainability without ethics is an empty promise.

What octopus farming looks like

Nueva Pescanova has been trialling octopus aquaculture for years and in 2022 announced plans to open a facility in the Canary Islands capable of producing thousands of tonnes of octopus flesh annually.

The fact that it’s now 2025 and the facility isn’t yet open offers a glimmer of hope.

While not yet definitively blocked, the project encountered resistance from scientists and animal welfare groups over cruelty and environmental concerns, leading to the Canary Islands Government rejecting an initial environmental impact assessment and demanding a more comprehensive one in July 2024. Additionally, a legislative proposal was presented in May 2025 to pre-emptively ban octopus farming in Spain. 

Time will tell whether the ban comes into effect.

In the meantime, public pressure is needed, and to generate that, people must understand what “farming” octopuses looks like in practice:

Close confinement

Octopuses are naturally solitary hunters, although research has recently shown that they sometimes like to partake in multi-species hunting groups, often functioning as the group leader. 

In their natural environment, they certainly spend much of their lives alone, occupying dens or roaming the seabed. 

On farms, they are forced into crowded tanks, unable to avoid one another. Researchers who have visited trial facilities report a grim outcome: stressed octopuses attacking and eating each other alive or self-mutilating. Cannibalism isn’t “misbehaviour”, it’s the inevitable result of taking solitary predators and cramming them together.

Barren, unstimulating environments

In nature, octopuses use rocks, shells, and seaweed for camouflage and den-building. They change colour and texture to blend into their surroundings. They hunt, explore, and play. 

In farms, tanks are stripped bare for ease of management. There’s no hiding place, no enrichment, no complexity, only walls, water, and stress. Imagine the psychological torment of an intelligent being reduced to swimming in endless circles in a featureless box for their entire existence.

Killing methods

When the time comes to slaughter them, the proposed method is ice slurry: submerging the octopuses in near-freezing water until they die. 

Scientific reviews have found this to be intensely painful, causing a prolonged and distressing death. Octopuses are especially sensitive to sudden temperature changes, which means the process is not just inhumane, but excruciating. No “humane” method for killing octopuses at an industrial scale exists. That hasn’t stopped the industry pressing ahead.

Feed requirements

Octopuses are carnivores with a huge appetite for fishes and crustaceans. Farming them means catching and killing vast numbers of other marine animals just to keep them alive. 

As mentioned above, studies estimate it takes around three kilos of wild-caught fishes to produce a single kilo of farmed octopus. This is ecological madness. Far from protecting wild populations, octopus farming piles even more pressure on collapsing fishes populations. It’s suffering compounded: suffering for the octopuses trapped in tanks, and suffering for the countless fishes who are killed to feed them.

Disease and biosecurity risks

As with all forms of intensive farming, crowding increases the risk of disease outbreaks. Octopuses have complex immune responses that are poorly understood. A single infection could sweep through tanks, leading to mass deaths. And the industry’s likely solution? Antibiotics and chemicals, with all the environmental spillover we already see in industrial fishes farming.

Waste and pollution

Large-scale aquaculture facilities produce concentrated waste: faeces, uneaten food, and chemical residues. These flow directly into surrounding waters, damaging fragile marine ecosystems. For an island environment like the Canaries, this is a serious and long-term threat.

Moral contradiction

Beyond the suffering and the ecological costs, there is a deeper contradiction. As a culture, we celebrate octopuses, marvelling at their intelligence in documentaries, children’s stories, and viral videos. In the UK, we’ve even granted them legal recognition as sentient beings. And yet, we are now being asked to accept their confinement, suffering, and mass killing as just another food product. The hypocrisy could not be clearer.

Octopus farming makes visible, in stark relief, the core injustice of animal exploitation: that even when we know a being is intelligent, emotional, and sentient, we still choose to ignore their interests if money can be made. 

It’s not just Spain — the spread & resistance

Nueva Pescanova’s plan in the Canary Islands rightly grabbed headlines, but the idea of octopus farming is no longer confined to a single port. Research hatcheries, public funding, and industry interest are spreading the concept, even as bans and campaigns push back.

In Galicia, Spain, the company Grupo Profand has been granted a 10-year license to build a larval-stage facility for common octopus. Although presented as “research”, such projects are stepping stones toward full commercial exploitation.

Governments around the world are already investing public money into developing octopus aquaculture. Compassion in World Farming has exposed that many governments are funding this research despite glaring ethical and environmental risks. 

In New Zealand, the government supported an octopus aquaculture project through its Endeavour Fund. The response was swift when 169 organisations signed an open letter urging the government to stop funding a system that could only lead to widespread suffering.

In the United States, resistance has taken the form of law. 

In 2024, Washington became the first state to ban octopus farming outright. California soon followed, prohibiting not only farming but also the sale of farmed octopus. 

North Carolina has introduced similar legislation, while campaigns in New Jersey and New York are gathering momentum. Activist groups such as Eko are helping the public petition for pre-emptive bans before farms ever get a foothold.

Meanwhile, public opinion is shifting. Surveys in the EU and UK suggest that once people learn about the welfare, ecological, and ethical issues, support for bans rises sharply. Certification schemes such as Friends of the Sea have already signalled that they will not certify farmed octopus, a small but meaningful form of resistance in the marketplace.

Even Nueva Pescanova’s own project has faced obstacles. The Canary Islands’ government rejected its initial application on environmental grounds, forcing the company into a more rigorous assessment process.

The message is clear that while some companies and governments push forward, others (i.e. citizens, campaigners, and lawmakers) are beginning to say no. The outcome is not predetermined.

Better alternatives

The answer to overfishing and rising demand is not to industrialise yet another sentient being. What we need is protection and respect. That starts with conserving the habitats octopuses depend on, i.e. kelp forests, coral reefs, and marine reserves that also shelter countless other species. 

It means choosing foods that don’t come at the expense of animal suffering. Plant-based seafood alternatives are improving all the time, offering the taste of the sea without the cruelty or ecological cost.

It also calls for a cultural shift. Every time we choose compassion over consumption, we weaken the demand that fuels factory farming. 

My Octopus Teacher is proof of how quickly attitudes can change when people are given the chance to see octopuses as individuals, not commodities. 

Above all, we need to nurture a sense of respect and wonder. Our animal kin are not products; they are beings to learn from, to marvel at, and to allow to live freely in the oceans they call home.

What you can do to help stop octopus farming

If you believe octopus farming is wrong, you can:

• Add your name to petitions and campaigns like those run by Eko and Compassion in World Farming. A few minutes of your time adds weight to global campaigns.
• Write to your MP, senator, or local representative to let them know you oppose any attempt to license octopus farming, and that you expect them to act in line with the science on sentience.
• Share articles, documentaries, or this blog on your social media to raise awareness. Many people still don’t know that octopus farming is being planned. Public opinion can shift quickly once the facts are out.
• Choose plant-based seafood alternatives to send a clear message to food companies that there is no appetite for farming sentient beings.
• Support animal sanctuaries, vegan advocacy groups, and campaigns for animal rights to help challenge the system that makes these farms possible in the first place.

Every action, however small it feels, adds to a collective voice that can’t be ignored. Resistance is already working, as we’ve seen in Washington and California. With enough pressure, we can make sure octopus farms never become normalised.

A call to conscience

Octopuses have survived for hundreds of millions of years, outlasting the dinosaurs, reshaping themselves into one of evolution’s most astonishing achievements.

To reduce them now to the status of farmed flesh would be a tragedy, not only for the octopuses but for us. It would show that even in the face of overwhelming evidence of sentience, intelligence, and feeling, humanity chose exploitation over respect (again).

The octopus in My Octopus Teacher captured hearts because she was recognised as someone, not something. That’s the truth we must hold on to.

Octopus farming is not inevitable. It can be stopped. Governments can ban it, as some states in the US already have. Consumers can reject it. Together, we can say clearly that beings as remarkable as octopuses belong in the ocean, not in tanks.

The question is simple: will we honour the intelligence and wonder of our animal kin, or will we betray them for profit?

The answer says more about us than it does about them.