Proposals to farm octopuses commercially have alarmed animal welfare scientists due to the extraordinary intelligence and solitary nature of these cephalopods.
Farming octopuses at industrial scale requires confining creatures whose entire behavioural ecology is built around solitary exploration, hunting, and territorial defence. There is no known enrichment strategy that can adequately address the needs of an animal evolved to range across complex ocean territories. Unlike fish, octopuses cannot be made comfortable in close proximity to others — conspecific aggression under crowded conditions would be severe. Welfare scientists have called for an industry moratorium precisely because the welfare problems appear insuperable given current knowledge.