By Claire Marshall.
The environment and rural affairs correspondent of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The images are from the same company.
The news that the world's first commercial octopus farm is close to becoming reality has been met with disappointment by scientists. They argue that intelligent creatures that are able to feel pain and emotions should not be reared for food.
A Giant Pacific Octopus is a part of the job of a person likeStacey Tonkin. He sticks his arms in the glass when he sees her when she lifts the lid on the tank. If he's in a good mood. She says that he's the equivalent of a teenager because he's so young.
He exhibits what you'd expect a teenager to be like, he sleeps all day and is grumpy at times. He wants to charge around his tank and show off.
Bristol Aquarium.
One of the aquarists at Bristol Aquarium, called DJ, sees different reactions from each of them. She says he will stay and hold her hand.
The keepers feed the octopus with seafood. Sometimes they put food in a dog toy for him to practice his hunting skills.
She says his colour changes with his moods. It's more like an active or playful feeling when he's an orangey brown. Speckly is interested. He'll be swimming in orange and brown and then he'll come over and sit beside you and look at you, which is quite amazing.
The octopus shows his intelligence through his eyes. You can sense something is there when he looks at you.
There is a person named Stacey Tonkin.
The Bristol Aquarium has a person there.
An amendment to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill will recognize the level of awareness thatStacey witnesses first-hand.
A team of experts combed through more than 300 scientific studies and concluded that there was "strong scientific evidence" that octopuses could experience pleasure, excitement and joy, but also pain, distress and harm.
The authors said that they were convinced that high-welfare farming was impossible, and that the government could consider banning imports of farmed seafood in the future.
In Asia, the Mediterranean and the USA, you can find octopus in soups and on plates. The creatures are eaten alive in South Korea. The number of wild octopuses is decreasing and prices are going up. More than one million tonnes are caught each year, more than ten times the number caught in 1950.
The race to discover the secret to breeding the octopus in captivity has been going on for decades. It's difficult because the larvae only eat live food and need a carefully controlled environment.
The Spanish multinational, Nueva Pescanova (NP), appears to have beaten companies in Mexico, Japan and Australia to win the race. It will start marketing farmed octopus in the summer of 2020.
The company was built on research done by the Spanish Oceanographic Institute, looking at the breeding habits of the Common Octopus. NP's commercial farm will be located close to the port of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.
The farm is expected to produce 3,000 tons of octopus a year. The company said it will help to stop the taking of the animals from the wild.
The images are from the same company.
There are Octopuses drying on a line.
Nueva Pescanova has refused to give any information about the conditions the octopuses will be kept in. The size of the tanks, the food they will eat and how they will be killed are all secret.
The plans have been denounced by an international group of researchers. The governments of several countries, including Spain, have been urged to ban it by the campaign group Compassion in World Farming.
The research manager is angry. These animals are amazing. They are smart and solitary. It's wrong to put them in barren tanks.
She says anyone who has watched the film will appreciate that.
The images are from the same company.
An animal is hiding.
Large, complex brains are what the occiputs have. They have proven their intelligence in many scientific experiments. They've been observed using coconut and sea shells to hide and have shown they can learn quickly. They've been able to escape from aquariums and steal traps.
They are highly territorial and have no skeletons to protect them. If there was more than one octopus in a tank, experts say they could start to eat each other.
The creatures that are bred in Spain would receive little protection under European law. The EU law covering farm animal welfare only applies to animals that have their backs to the ground. There is no scientifically proven method for their humane slaughter.
The rearing of aquatic animals for food is called aquaria.
The sector is growing at a rapid rate.
The global aquaculture market is expected to grow at a rate of 5% a year and will be worth almost $245 billion by the year 2027.
Around the world, there are over 500 aquatic species.
As the human population grows, global aquaculture could provide a vital source of food.
The fish in captivity are more aggressive and have more diseases.
Guidelines published by the EU acknowledge the lack of good husbandry practices and research gaps in the impact of aquaculture on animal and public health.
The common ancestor of humans and octopuses was 560 million years ago, and evolutionary biologists are concerned.
An example of an organisms intelligence is very similar to ours. Their problem-solving abilities are very similar to humans, and yet they're not normal.
If we were ever going to meet an intelligent alien from a different planet, this would be how it would look.
Nueva Pescanova says on its website that it is committed to farming seafood as a way to reduce pressure on fishing grounds and ensure sustainable, safe, healthy, and controlled resources.
The company's environmental argument is illogical, according to Dr. Lara. It doesn't mean that fishermen will stop fishing.
She thinks that farming octopuses could help the fish stocks. The weight of an animal's body makes it necessary to eat two-to-three times its own weight in food to live. Around one-third of the fish caught around the planet is turned into feed for other animals. The fish products from the overfished stocks could be fed to the farmed octopus.
Consumers who want to do the right thing may think eating farmed octopus is better than eating wild ones. She says that the animal is going to be suffering its entire life. A report led by an associate professor of environmental studies at NYU argues that banning octopus farming wouldn't leave humans without enough to eat. It will only mean that affluent consumers will pay more.
The images are from the same company.
The dish is a Spanish one.
The debate is complicated by cultural issues.
Around the world, factory farming has evolved differently. What's the difference between a bacon sandwich made from a pig and a factory-farmed octopus in a Spanish dish?
The mistakes of the past shouldn't be repeated because the sentience of many farmed animals wasn't known when the intensive systems were set up.
We know how to improve the lives of pigs because they have been domesticated for many years. The problem with octopus is that they are completely wild, so we don't know what they need, or how we can provide a better life for them.
Should an intelligent, complex creature be mass-produced for food, given that they are not essential for food security, and that we know all about their intelligence?
"They are very complex beings," says Dr. Vinther. If we want to farm them or eat them, we need to respect that.
You can follow the person on the social media site.
Spain.
Food.
The welfare of animals.
Fish farming.
