Cephalopods like octopuses and squids display remarkable intelligence and behavioral flexibility. Growing scientific evidence suggests they experience stress and potentially pain.
The evidence for cephalopod sentience — the capacity to have subjective experiences including pain and suffering — has grown substantially in recent years. Behavioral, neurological, and physiological research all point toward octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish as beings capable of experiencing stress and potentially pain. Yet industrial fisheries catch hundreds of thousands of tons of squid annually with no welfare protocols, and the emerging octopus aquaculture industry has been criticized by scientists for failing to address fundamental welfare challenges before scaling up.