Cephalopods - octopus, squid, and cuttlefish - have complex nervous systems and demonstrate sophisticated behaviour that raises serious welfare questions for their use in research and increasingly in food production.
Cephalopods present a compelling welfare case based on their cognitive complexity, pain responses, and behavioural evidence of emotional states. Octopuses in research show clear signs of stress and learn to avoid painful stimuli. Their distributed nervous system means injury to arms causes significant neural disruption. Farmed octopus welfare is essentially unstudied, and the welfare implications of intensive production are unknown but potentially severe for such intelligent animals. The wild-capture fisheries for squid and octopus involve unknown welfare impacts during capture and death.