Plans to farm octopuses intensively raise unprecedented welfare questions. Octopuses are highly intelligent, solitary animals for whom intensive confinement is deeply problematic.
The natural behaviour of octopuses is incompatible with intensive farm confinement. Solitary in the wild, they become aggressive and stressed when housed in groups. Individual housing in small tanks denies environmental complexity that these cognitively complex animals need. Proposed kill methods for octopus (ice slurry) are potentially aversive. The Aquatic Life Institute and others have called for a moratorium on octopus farming pending welfare research. This is an area where getting welfare right from the start is critical.