Cephalopods demonstrate extraordinary intelligence and have gained legal sentience recognition in several countries, raising major questions about their treatment in fishing, research, and potential aquaculture.
Cephalopods represent a distinct evolutionary pathway to intelligence. Their cognition involves problem-solving, learning, play, and what appears to be emotional experience. Legal recognition of their sentience has not yet translated into meaningful welfare protections in fisheries or research. Billions of squid are caught, often left to suffocate on decks. Research on octopuses routinely involves procedures that would require anaesthesia for vertebrates. The gap between scientific understanding and welfare practice is large.