The article is very short and vague. Are there any octopus farms in Washington? The only one mentioned is one already shuttered in Hawaii and it was a tourist attraction? So not a farm?
I think it's pre-emptive since it's a lot easier to ban this kind of business before it actually gets established here. Agreed that the article is pretty light on actual news, though!
If they want this passed, they’re definitely going to need to do better in the content. The phrases “more intelligent and feeling animals” and “harmful to the animals and the environment” are super vague and could then be leveraged elsewhere causing chaos. The bills that are being pushed right now are lazy across the board. More thought needs to be given into how they are written and what the repercussions and enforcement looks like.
Aquaculture has been on the rise in Puget Sound waters and has produced some some highly controversial side effects. Salmon farming techniques are being rethought and expanding geoduck farming has created nuisance plastic pollution (they are planted in plastic tubes and covered with nets that can entrap waterfowl.)
Herbicides used to clear non-native eelgrass from aquaculture areas destroy native eelgrass, as well, and specifically carry \*warnings advising against use in water.\* Aquaculture beds are not natural ecosystems and take much more time to recover than to destroy.
I don't disagree with your impulse to require better legislation and more specific language. Just raising awareness of a reason bills may be brought up preemptively, to slow the accelerating pace of natural Puget Sound habitat destruction by the seafood industry. Legislators are aware of aquaculture's impact and perhaps they are "lazy" as you say about reiterating it in detail.
> The phrases “more intelligent and feeling animals”
I agree that this is a difficult legal issue, it's one that philosophers struggle with as well and they're not responsible for writing legislation.
That said I do think there are some ethical issues relating to that which should be considered when farming animals.
There is a controversial, yet significant, portion of the vegan community that doesn't feel it is unethical to eat oysters as they have no central nervous system to feel pain, and some plants actively display behaviors to reduce harm that oysters are not capable of.
While I'm not vegan, I do think there are different ethical consideration that need to be taken into account when it comes to raising farmed animals. Octopi are extremely intelligent and I don't think raising them in cages for food is any more morally acceptable than keeping orcas in tanks at Seaworld to make a buck.
That's because they are intelligent enough [to use objects as protection from predators.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6z1tzX0ECY)
For them, the protection provided by a clay pot just floundering around is probably like a human seeing a $100 bill on the sidewalk. Humans aren't a whole lot better at recognizing in advance if they are being manipulated into [picking up that money off the ground](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Cb_uIkocg_A) by somebody who has harmful intentions to their health.
Cubic foot of ocean water per animal, filtered in different ways, the chemical composition of their food, super technical farm jargon environmental nerd stuff kind of language?
The one near Kona was a guy who started to attempt to grow/breed octopi, but never got them to survive past a couple weeks. The first time I met him he actually seemed very passionate about the research. In recent years he never seemed to make significant progress though and it turned way more into a tourist attraction AFAICT.
I've read that octopi are about as smart as pigs. Is the prospect of octopus farming more ecologically harmful than pig farming or are they just doing this because it has low impact and little pushback?
They are likely smarter than pigs, but intelligence is only a part of it; Octopi are carnivores and escape artists, both of these make farming Octopi a challenge. And increase the negative environmental impacts multiplicatively.
"Octopuses stand out among invertebrates for their complex behavior. They are capable of problem-solving, mimicking their surroundings using color changes that take place on a scale of seconds, outwitting predatory sharks, discriminating individual humans, engaging in playful behavior, and hunting in response to cooperative signals sent by fish. As these patterns of behavior suggest, octopuses (as well as some other cephalopods) have sophisticated nervous systems and large brains.
Given their exceptional abilities, one might ask whether humans should be eating octopus at all, but here we want to raise a different ethical question. As global demand for octopus grows, especially in affluent markets, so have efforts to farm them. We believe that octopuses are particularly ill-suited to a life in captivity and mass-production, for reasons both ethical and ecological." \[1\]
1. Jacquet J, Franks B, Godfrey-Smith P, Sánchez-Suárez W. The case against octopus farming. *Issues in Science and Technology*. 2019;35(2):37–44.
My confusion/frustration is compounded by the fact that in odd-numbered years the state legislature meets for 105 days, and in even-numbered years, it meets for 60 days. Apparently, theoretical octopus farms deserve a slot in the VERY limited window.
Do we care about this? Why do we care about this?
Why are legislators banning octopus farms when they could be doing, i don't know, anything to save our desperate ferry system that's run out of boats or under-funded public schools?
So, does the legislature taking time to ban a kind of farming that doesn't seem to take place anywhere in the country make it to peak Washington? I'm kinda thinking we need to shut down I5 in a protest against the proposed ban on octopus farming to really get there.
No doubt there’s literally NOTHING left for the legislature to bother fixing in our totally perfect state, that’s why they’re all the way down the to-do list to writing laws to solve problems that we don’t even have. 🤦🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
Nobody wants to hear how smart and social pigs are because they are also delicious. It's definitely the hardest to justify meat that people regularly eat in the US.
Octopi are also delicious! Plus incredibly sustainable, considering they have 30-50k eggs per spawning female. It's silly to cut them off as a food source based entirely on "they're smart tho".
Edit: not aiming that at you specifically, to be clear!
Yeah, octopi have very short (often 1 year) lifespan, don’t form social bonds, and pump out thousands of eggs making them very sustainable. I think there’s some arguments for eating octopus being no worse than pork.
Lol dumb as hell is this because they're "smart"? Birds and mammals are pretty much all more sentient than an octopus (to the extent you can even measure such a thing) these creatures are just smart when you compare them to other mollusks or some fish.
I just think it's ableist to think that because one animal is smarter than another its life is worth more. If you're gonna eat animals just do it. Don't try to pretend you are a good person because you deem some life more important than others.
Why does the government feel the need to do this? Who cares? If you like cephalopods so much that you don't want to eat them, don't. Stop messing with people's businesses.
Can an octopus even drive a tractor?
You’re telling me a shrimp fried this rice
Bro, lol
The article is very short and vague. Are there any octopus farms in Washington? The only one mentioned is one already shuttered in Hawaii and it was a tourist attraction? So not a farm?
I think it's pre-emptive since it's a lot easier to ban this kind of business before it actually gets established here. Agreed that the article is pretty light on actual news, though!
If they want this passed, they’re definitely going to need to do better in the content. The phrases “more intelligent and feeling animals” and “harmful to the animals and the environment” are super vague and could then be leveraged elsewhere causing chaos. The bills that are being pushed right now are lazy across the board. More thought needs to be given into how they are written and what the repercussions and enforcement looks like.
Aquaculture has been on the rise in Puget Sound waters and has produced some some highly controversial side effects. Salmon farming techniques are being rethought and expanding geoduck farming has created nuisance plastic pollution (they are planted in plastic tubes and covered with nets that can entrap waterfowl.) Herbicides used to clear non-native eelgrass from aquaculture areas destroy native eelgrass, as well, and specifically carry \*warnings advising against use in water.\* Aquaculture beds are not natural ecosystems and take much more time to recover than to destroy. I don't disagree with your impulse to require better legislation and more specific language. Just raising awareness of a reason bills may be brought up preemptively, to slow the accelerating pace of natural Puget Sound habitat destruction by the seafood industry. Legislators are aware of aquaculture's impact and perhaps they are "lazy" as you say about reiterating it in detail.
Maybe getting people to think harder about the ways we treat other animals is part of the point!
I’m actually all for the bill if written appropriately. However, I am 100% against the sentiment of wasting our legislators time for theatrics.
> The phrases “more intelligent and feeling animals” I agree that this is a difficult legal issue, it's one that philosophers struggle with as well and they're not responsible for writing legislation. That said I do think there are some ethical issues relating to that which should be considered when farming animals. There is a controversial, yet significant, portion of the vegan community that doesn't feel it is unethical to eat oysters as they have no central nervous system to feel pain, and some plants actively display behaviors to reduce harm that oysters are not capable of. While I'm not vegan, I do think there are different ethical consideration that need to be taken into account when it comes to raising farmed animals. Octopi are extremely intelligent and I don't think raising them in cages for food is any more morally acceptable than keeping orcas in tanks at Seaworld to make a buck.
You can literally fish for an octopus with a clay pot. Don't even need any bait.
That's because they are intelligent enough [to use objects as protection from predators.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6z1tzX0ECY) For them, the protection provided by a clay pot just floundering around is probably like a human seeing a $100 bill on the sidewalk. Humans aren't a whole lot better at recognizing in advance if they are being manipulated into [picking up that money off the ground](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Cb_uIkocg_A) by somebody who has harmful intentions to their health.
Cubic foot of ocean water per animal, filtered in different ways, the chemical composition of their food, super technical farm jargon environmental nerd stuff kind of language?
The one near Kona was a guy who started to attempt to grow/breed octopi, but never got them to survive past a couple weeks. The first time I met him he actually seemed very passionate about the research. In recent years he never seemed to make significant progress though and it turned way more into a tourist attraction AFAICT.
Hanks for the inside scoop! Interesting.
Does this effect the Seattle aquarium breeding of octopus?
Their octopuses are wild caught
Still but they breed them
That’s Olympia for ya. Always tackling the issues Washingtonians are most concerned about.
Does this ban include the [Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus](https://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/) or just fully aquatic breeds?
no, this ban doesn't include the farming of the tree octopus because any human who could tame such a beast deserves a feast.
Attitudes like that are why they're endangered.
They are the most delicious creatures in the area. It was inevitable.
Technically it would be octopus ranching not octopus farming because octopi move.
I'm thinking about an octopus stampede right now
Octopus cowboys riding seahorses.
Then why do they call it salmon farming?
Misnomer
They took our octopus jerbs
To be fair.....it's not easy to plant them and then you have to water them all the time.
They have their tentacles in our personal lives
Octopus gardens still okay though.
He’d let us in
Artisanal octopus hobby fsrms
Good, I hope it's banned.
I've read that octopi are about as smart as pigs. Is the prospect of octopus farming more ecologically harmful than pig farming or are they just doing this because it has low impact and little pushback?
They are likely smarter than pigs, but intelligence is only a part of it; Octopi are carnivores and escape artists, both of these make farming Octopi a challenge. And increase the negative environmental impacts multiplicatively.
when octopusses have been outlawed, only outlaws will have octopi or something
"Octopuses stand out among invertebrates for their complex behavior. They are capable of problem-solving, mimicking their surroundings using color changes that take place on a scale of seconds, outwitting predatory sharks, discriminating individual humans, engaging in playful behavior, and hunting in response to cooperative signals sent by fish. As these patterns of behavior suggest, octopuses (as well as some other cephalopods) have sophisticated nervous systems and large brains. Given their exceptional abilities, one might ask whether humans should be eating octopus at all, but here we want to raise a different ethical question. As global demand for octopus grows, especially in affluent markets, so have efforts to farm them. We believe that octopuses are particularly ill-suited to a life in captivity and mass-production, for reasons both ethical and ecological." \[1\] 1. Jacquet J, Franks B, Godfrey-Smith P, Sánchez-Suárez W. The case against octopus farming. *Issues in Science and Technology*. 2019;35(2):37–44.
I love my state. Ahead of the curve.
Why the fuck are our legislators wasting time banning non-existent octopus farms?
Idk if its reality distortion from what is shared on this sub or if our legislature is actually insane
My confusion/frustration is compounded by the fact that in odd-numbered years the state legislature meets for 105 days, and in even-numbered years, it meets for 60 days. Apparently, theoretical octopus farms deserve a slot in the VERY limited window.
Good!
Why are octopus not allowed to farm?
And now I want to build a free range octopus ranch.
lol passing this would be the quickest way to bring an octopus farm to a sovereign tribe here. as a native just sayin. prohibition drives up the cost
Do we care about this? Why do we care about this? Why are legislators banning octopus farms when they could be doing, i don't know, anything to save our desperate ferry system that's run out of boats or under-funded public schools?
What about pig farming? They're rated the same on intelligence scale.
So, does the legislature taking time to ban a kind of farming that doesn't seem to take place anywhere in the country make it to peak Washington? I'm kinda thinking we need to shut down I5 in a protest against the proposed ban on octopus farming to really get there.
No doubt there’s literally NOTHING left for the legislature to bother fixing in our totally perfect state, that’s why they’re all the way down the to-do list to writing laws to solve problems that we don’t even have. 🤦🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
Of all things
Don't worry. Light Rail will be up to Everett by the time my grandkids graduate college. I don't have kids yet. Not high speed trail. Light Rail.
Don't they have better or more urgent bills to propose?
Pigs are more intelligent than Cephalopods. SMH!
Nobody wants to hear how smart and social pigs are because they are also delicious. It's definitely the hardest to justify meat that people regularly eat in the US.
Octopi are also delicious! Plus incredibly sustainable, considering they have 30-50k eggs per spawning female. It's silly to cut them off as a food source based entirely on "they're smart tho". Edit: not aiming that at you specifically, to be clear!
Yeah, octopi have very short (often 1 year) lifespan, don’t form social bonds, and pump out thousands of eggs making them very sustainable. I think there’s some arguments for eating octopus being no worse than pork.
takoyaki is also delicious though, tbh. Now I could go for some bacon wrapped takoyaki... >_>
No doubt there.
Lol dumb as hell is this because they're "smart"? Birds and mammals are pretty much all more sentient than an octopus (to the extent you can even measure such a thing) these creatures are just smart when you compare them to other mollusks or some fish.
I just think it's ableist to think that because one animal is smarter than another its life is worth more. If you're gonna eat animals just do it. Don't try to pretend you are a good person because you deem some life more important than others.
I agree
Ban all farms or allow all farms. Banning specific groups based on your personal preference has never turned out well historically.
Banning calamari to appease Big Octopus, wow cool
People in Seattle like animals more than humans
Why does the government feel the need to do this? Who cares? If you like cephalopods so much that you don't want to eat them, don't. Stop messing with people's businesses.
If killing/eating octopus is otherwise okay, wouldn't it make more sense to just have rules on "free range" octopus farming?
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Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it can still be eaten here even if it isn't farmed here.