The Los Angeles Times reported on it.
There are dozens of 50-gallon water tanks gurgle and bubble away, each home to a solitary, wild-caught octopus and a couple of floating, plastic bath toys.
The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority owns the land where the Kanaloa Octopus Farm is located. The farm owner and his staff say it could help protect the species from being overfished.
Carmelle Joyner, a farm Biologist and tour guide, said that most of the octopus you have ever seen have been caught in the wild.
There is no way to raise an animal in a cage. If we can figure out how to raise them here, we might be able to use our research to help other places.
Conroy's farm has come under fire from those who say it is cruel to keep octopuses in captivity.
The farm has become ground zero in a growing movement that is demanding humane treatment of these playful sea dwellers.
Advocates say the farm is a horror show in which wild and curious day octopuses are captured and confined in sterile tanks, where they spend the rest of their lives being poked, prodded and chased.
TheOctopuses are inquisitive and playful. They use tools, change their skin color for camouflage, and have long-term memories. They learn from observing. "They have the capacity to be bored, that's the most important thing," said the director of captive animal welfare at the PETA Foundation.
They are confined to a series of small, bleak tanks where they are used for public interaction. This is not normal. Not a way to conserve resources.
The fight over the treatment of veal calves and force-fed geese is similar to this one. Critics are wondering if Conroy's startup and others should continue to breed and confine sentient creatures for a life with no agency, while providing little conserve value, and for a food that is marketed predominantly to wealthy people.
Widespread farming of octopuses would endanger other sea life since they require immense amounts of live, fresh caught crustaceans and fish while also producing large amounts of waste, harming nearby coral reefs and habitat.
The professor of Environmental Studies at New York University wants to know why we are doing this. Is it to give food to people who are hungry? Is it because it's necessary?
We are at a crossroads where we can ask ourselves if we should do this or not.
Repeated requests for comment were not responded to by the author.
A reporter and photographer for The Times went to the Kanaloa farm with a group of tourists.
Most of the outdoor tanks were occupied by solitary day octopuses who had been caught just off the coast.
The small plastic cave-like dwellings that sat at the bottom of the tanks were used by some to hide from the tourists. Others crawled around the inside walls of their sink, looking at their voyeurs and ignoring the two or three plastic bath toys that were floating on the surface above them.
Slim Shady reached up and touched the hand of a man who had been gently splashing the surface, hoping to make a connection with this alien life form.
The man's hand was wrapped in at least two curious tentacles as he spoke. That's a good person.
Despite the efforts of entrepreneurs such as Conroy, a successful commercially operating octopus farm does not exist. Getting reproductive adults to mate, lay eggs, and have offspring that develop into reproductive adults is something that nobody has figured out.
There is a chance that one of the facilities will someday learn to breed octopuses in captivity.
This is a high end product. The market that has excess money to buy luxury goods will be fed by it. The farm characterizes excess with no regard for ethics.
Researchers at the Marine Biology Laboratory in Woodshole, Massachusetts, were able to close the life cycle of the pygmy zebra octopus.
The eggs and paralarvae of pygmy zebra octopuses are very different from the kinds of farms that are hoping to take advantage of them.
She said thatOctopuses have different universes of reproduction.
A small number of large eggs, about the size of a pea, are produced by the Pygmy zebra octopus.
Hundreds of thousands of small eggs are produced by the common and the day octopus.
Their high yield makes them desirable. Nobody knows how to keep these small hatchlings alive.
The facility was trying to figure out what the paralarvae hatchlings eat, according to Joyner. The paralarvae was kept alive for only 13 days after hatching.
The guys are roughly the size of a half a grain of rice. She said that they are very small and picky. They like to eat small live foods. We don't know what that is at the moment.
The would-be farmers have other problems.
If you put two of those guys together in a tank, they will kill each other. The product would be ruined by that.
Live food such as fish, crabs and clams is important for the survival of the octopus.
"Octopuses are very good at distinguishing between right and wrong," said Peter Tse. They only want to eat dead things.
Pollution is the issue. There are high levels of Nitrogen and Phosphor in the water. In a sensitive place like Hawaii, that dirty water can do some damage.
The ethical question of whether highly intelligent creatures should be kept in sterile tanks for the rest of their lives is problematic.
The federal government doesn't consider squid and cuttlefish to be animals in the United States.
Two years ago, a group of legal scholars sent a petition to the National Institutes of Health, asking them to classify the cephalopods as animals. Although Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have laws to protect them, they are not protected in the US.
There needs to be more regulation on what people are doing with animals. It can be for research. Whatever it is for food production. It could be either entertainment or something else. Kathy Hessler is the director of the animal legal education initiative at George Washington University Law School.
The current lack of legal protections leaves the octopuses vulnerable to being mistreated and abused.
There isn't a lot of information about veterinary treatment for animals. There isn't much about pain relief or humane slaughter. None of the things we've seen in the last 20 years have been established for the cephalopod.
When we think about what is the right way to keep an animal in captivity, it's important that the environment replicates the complexity of the animal.
She doesn't see much evidence that the animals are getting the stimulation and enrichment they need.
She thought it looked like a straight-up tourist attraction.
The Los Angeles Times
The Tribune Content Agency is a part of Tribune Content Agency.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
