Octopuses are exceptionally intelligent animals whose potential sentience raises profound welfare concerns about their treatment in fisheries, research and proposed aquaculture.
Octopuses present one of the most challenging and important welfare frontiers in animal ethics. Their extraordinary intelligence and behavioural complexity suggests a rich inner life and capacity for suffering that is profoundly at odds with their treatment in fisheries and food systems. The proposed commercialisation of octopus farming without any established welfare science or standards would represent a massive expansion of potential suffering for highly sentient animals. Current wild capture methods cause acute stress, injury and often slow death.