Octopuses: The Closest Thing to Alien Intelligence on Earth
Intelligence
A Different Kind of Mind
Octopuses are the most cognitively sophisticated invertebrates we have ever studied. They have nine brains (one central, plus one in each arm), three hearts, blue copper-based blood, and they can solve novel mechanical puzzles in minutes. They use coconut shells as portable shelters, unscrew jars from the inside, and have been filmed sneaking out of tanks at night to raid neighbouring tanks for fish before returning to their own.
Recent neuroscience suggests they dream: their skin changes colour rapidly during REM-like sleep states, mirroring the patterns they display when hunting awake.
In 2024, the Spanish multinational Nueva Pescanova won approval to build the world's first commercial octopus farm in the Canary Islands — designed to slaughter one million octopuses per year by drowning them in ice slurry. Scientists, ethicists and even seafood industry consultants have called it one of the most ethically indefensible food production proposals ever made.
Farming
Why Octopus Aquaculture Is Uniquely Awful
Octopuses are solitary, exploratory, and carnivorous. To farm them is to confine highly intelligent solitary animals in groups, in barren tanks, feeding them roughly three kilograms of wild-caught fish for every kilogram of octopus produced — a net loss of protein from the ocean.
Stocking densities cause cannibalism. The proposed slaughter method — submersion in ice slurry — has been shown in studies to be slow and stressful, prohibited for fish in many countries on welfare grounds.
Washington State, California, and Hawaii have already banned octopus farming. The EU is considering similar legislation.
We don't need new arguments to act differently. We need new defaults.
What you can do
Leave Them in the Ocean
Skip octopus and squid on menus and at the market. Demand drives expansion of these farms.
Support 'No Octopus Farming' campaigns by Eurogroup for Animals, Compassion in World Farming and the Aquatic Life Institute.
If you eat seafood, recognise that cephalopod sentience is now a settled question in mainstream science. The ethical frame has shifted.
Alternatives
You Never Needed Octopus
Culinary octopus texture — chewy, briny, slightly springy — is closely mimicked by braised king-trumpet mushroom stems, seared hearts of palm, and konjac-based cephalopod analogues from brands like Vgarden and Aqua Cultured Foods. In carpaccio and grilled preparations, blind-tested substitutes now consistently pass for the original in Mediterranean and Japanese kitchens.
Cell-cultivated calamari (Aqua Cultured Foods, San Francisco) received US regulatory review in 2024 and is expected to reach fine-dining menus before industrial octopus farming would come online. The technology is arriving faster than the harm can scale.
Octopuses
Key takeaways
Independent intelligence
Octopus minds evolved separately from ours — a parallel invention of cognition, not a lesser copy.
Farming is the wrong direction
Solitary carnivores in barren tanks fed wild fish is a category error in aquaculture.
Legislation is arriving
Multiple US states have pre-emptively banned octopus farms; the EU is next.
The alternatives outperformed us
Cell-cultivated and mushroom-based cephalopod dishes are already restaurant-grade.
Octopuses
Try one plant-based week.
In 2024, the Spanish multinational Nueva Pescanova won approval to build the world's first commercial octopus farm in the Canary Islands — designed to slaughter one million octopuses per year by drowning them in ice slurry. Scientists, ethicists and even seafood industry consultants have called it one of the most ethically indefensible food production proposals ever made.
Sources & further reading
- LSE 2021 Review — Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs — The scientific basis for UK sentience legislation.
- Compassion in World Farming — 'Octopus Farming: A Recipe for Disaster' — Welfare and ecological analysis of the Nueva Pescanova plan.
- Jacquet et al., Issues in Science and Technology (2019) — 'The Case Against Octopus Farming.'
- Aquatic Life Institute campaign briefings — Global regulatory status of octopus aquaculture.
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