Raising thousands of octopuses on an industrial level for human consumption: that's the project proposed by the Spanish firm Nueva Pescanova in the Canary Islands. This week on the Big Explanation, our journalist Lucas explored why octopus farms are a cause for concern...
⚠️🧠 This video, originally in French, was translated into English using AI. The translated version was checked by one of our journalists.
All information in this video was collected, verified, and sourced by our journalist Lucas.
⚠️🧠 This video, originally in French, was translated into English using AI. The translated version was checked by one of our journalists.
All information in this video was collected, verified, and sourced by our journalist Lucas.
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00:00Putting octopuses in a farm for human consumption raises many questions.
00:06I didn't believe this octopus farm story at first.
00:09I struggled to see how we could go from this to something like this.
00:12But a Spanish company has been working on this project for years
00:15and talks about it as a responsible and sustainable innovation.
00:18Her project may involve up to one million octopuses per year
00:21and it has already submitted authorization requests.
00:24This is our fear, that the first project serves as a reference
00:27for other countries or companies to start putting octopus farms around the world.
00:32On the other hand, several NGOs and scientists fear that this project is unsuitable for this animal,
00:37which has never been farmed on a large scale before.
00:39I wanted to find out, what would a giant octopus farm look like?
00:42What concerns does this raise? Let me explain.
00:49We're in the Canary Islands, specifically in the port of Las Palmas.
00:54According to Canaria Sahora, this area has been chosen to host a new type of farm.
00:59The plan is to raise and slaughter thousands of octopuses for human consumption.
01:04So why turn this wild animal into a new large-scale farm animal?
01:08To see more clearly, I studied the arguments of Nueva Pesca Nova, the company behind the project.
01:13I also interviewed a scientist opposed to it and one who researches octopuses.
01:18I like to compare them to wild cats.
01:20Firstly, I wanted to know what this octopus farm could look like.
01:28So yes, in aquaculture there are already fish or shrimp farms,
01:31but here it would be the common octopus species,
01:34and it would be the first time that an octopus would be in a large-scale farm.
01:38Nueva Pesca Nova, a Spanish multinational seafood company, claims 12,000 employees globally.
01:50At the beginning of 2023, we would be able to start cultivating.
01:56The project has a maximum capacity of 3,000 tons, but we won't reach this in the first year.
02:02The UK paper The Guardian explains this would involve killing around one million octopuses each year.
02:07The farm would be set on two floors with over 1,000 basins eventually.
02:121,000 basins, a simplified depiction.
02:16Some used for octopus reproduction, others for growth stages.
02:20Animal concentration could reach 10-15 octopuses per cubic meter, according to a report from the NGO Eurogroup for Animals.
02:26However, the company states that this number is still undetermined.
02:30Roberto Romero Perez, the biologist overseeing aquaculture at Nueva Pesca Nova,
02:35informed The Guardian they are uncertain about the density they can achieve,
02:39but admitted that the goal was to enhance density for economic viability.
02:43The rest of the parameters they will use on the farm are still quite uncertain.
03:13Nueva Pesca Nova's research teams have reached this milestone in 2019.
03:18Some of the concerns relate to the rearing conditions of these animals, which have special needs.
03:44This is the Pesca Nova Biomarine Center, where Nueva Pesca Nova conducts octopus research.
03:50Here, the company says it focuses on water, light, food and other factors to meet the octopuses' needs.
04:13NGOs and scientists question if this is feasible in large-scale farming.
04:31Critics target octopus slaughter.
04:33Roberto Romero Perez confirmed to The Guardian that they should be shot with cold water and ice baths
04:38gradually reaching 26.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
04:42According to him, it's the most respectful and humane form of sacrifice we know now.
04:51To aggress the stakes, it's interesting to delve into the specifics of this animal.
04:59Octopus has around 200 suction cups on eight arms, which have many uses.
05:04As everyone knows, they can change color and appearance in a matter of seconds.
05:09What I didn't know is they have a main brain, but also eight small brains controlling each arm.
05:14This enables them to be faster and have autonomy in each of their arms to feel or grasp objects.
05:20For an invertebrate animal without a skeleton, it has notable cognitive abilities.
05:25They can solve problems.
05:28They can open a jar.
05:30If you put a prey in a jar, they will open the jar and learn to do it faster and faster.
05:36In the same way, they can learn to attack certain objects to get a reward.
05:42So if you compare them to vertebrates, they are smarter.
05:45I'm not sure, and it's very difficult to compare the intelligence of one species to another.
05:48On the other hand, if you compare an octopus to a ball or an oyster, there is still a big cognitive difference.
05:55But that's not all.
05:56In 2021, this report from the London School of Economics found evidence of octopus sensitivity.
06:02Based on numerous studies, this report suggests that octopuses are sentient, meaning that they can feel pain and distress.
06:10There is the presence of nociceptors along the arms of the octopus, which are pain receptors.
06:14This information is currently treated in nerve centers, which are quite similar to what is observed in vertebrates.
06:20These are evidences that these species can feel pain and therefore stress.
06:25In response, in 2022, the government of the United Kingdom officially recognized octopuses as sentient species.
06:30In this 2019 article, 100 scientists already wrote,
06:34Understanding octopus intelligence should lead to refusing mass production of octopuses.
06:39So why would Nueva Pescanova call its project responsible and sustainable?
06:43And why would they want to farm octopuses in the first place?
06:46Spain is the largest consumer of octopus, but also followed by Portugal, Italy, Greece.
06:52These are the Mediterranean countries of Europe.
06:55But there are also other countries where octopus is also consumed.
06:59For example, in Japan or the United States, there is a lot of demand.
07:01It is a product that has become fashionable in the United States.
07:03The graph shows octopus fishing rise globally to meet demand.
07:06For the past decade, it fluctuated between 350,000 and 500,000 tons per year.
07:12However, the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the threat to the common octopus as least concern globally.
07:19The lowest threat level on its scale.
07:22Mainly due to the fact that unlike other species, the common octopus is widely present in the oceans.
07:28Despite this, the FAO of the UN considers that the current level of octopus fishing is not sustainable
07:35and therefore expects a decrease in supplies.
07:38Octopus farming is seen as an alternative.
07:42NOEVA Pesca Nova CEO Ignacio González says responsible and sustainable farming will conserve the species and benefit future generation.
07:51But for the scientists I talked to, it's uncertain if this farming type affects the quantities caught.
08:05In addition, octopuses are carnivores.
08:07Large farms will inevitably need a lot of food.
08:12A large volume of prey to feed the octopuses is a first difficulty.
08:15You have to adapt them to the size of the animal.
08:17So it's something that is complicated and that requires a lot of resources in the end.
08:21If we are basing an aquaculture on carnivorous animals,
08:24we have to keep fishing or fish more to feed these animals,
08:29which makes no sense at a sustainable level.
08:31NOEVA Pesca Nova claims that its feed will include byproducts of already caught fish,
08:36striving to replace animal proteins with plant sources.
08:40The company can already claim 10,000 football fields devoted to breeding species like shrimp or turbot.
08:46Octopuses are a potentially important new market.
08:49But then, under what conditions can octopus consumption be sustainable?
08:56NOEVA Pesca Nova defends its project as sustainable.
08:59In September 2023, the government of the Canary Islands decided to submit it to a more in-depth environmental analysis than planned.
09:09As per Canaria AORS media, this usually involves projects with notable environmental impacts.
09:14If permission is given, it will take years for the construction and development firm to achieve the expected output.
09:20In other words, as I said earlier, 3,000 tons per year, about 1 million octopuses per year.
09:25Flavie Bedel says many conditions are required to breed octopuses respectfully and to consider the environment.
09:30What I saw in one of their articles is that they are in the fifth generation,
09:34which no longer looks like a wild octopus.
09:37They say it themselves.
09:39It's a kind of natural selection where the individuals they have now are not necessarily trying to escape,
09:45which is against nature for an octopus.
09:47They admit that the behavior is not that of the first generation.
09:50It's not up to me to say whether it's good to do intensive breeding or not.
09:54I mean, it's the same in this case for the bodies, the cows, the chicks.
09:58What worries me is to stay in the well-being of the animals.
10:02We know that they are animals that feel pain and therefore, indeed, it is important to respect them.
10:07We would have to stop introducing carnivorous species in aquaculture
10:11and maybe base ourselves more on herbivorous species or on filtering organisms such as bivalves or algae cultivation.
10:19What we would have to do is adjust our level of consumption a little to the sustainability of the populations and the natural resources we have.
10:28In other words, if we want to eat octopus every day of the week or every weekend, it may not be sustainable.
10:35My aim in this episode was not to judge its quality.
10:38It's about sharing sourced perspectives and impactful information I came across on this topic
10:42and try to understand how far a wild animal can be domesticated and the resulting consequences.
10:53I hope this new episode of The Great Explanation was interesting and informative.
10:57Of course, I can't say everything in 10 minutes.
11:00Here's a bonus on another aspect I discovered.
11:02In my laboratory, when I worked with twin bimaculoids, there was a hole above their aquarium
11:06and I put crabs in it to look at their predatory behavior.
11:10And often, when I put their favorite crab, the one that was the least favorite of their crabs,
11:14because I usually put shrimps and crabs,
11:16he will throw water, he will make a water compulsion towards the hole where I release the prey,
11:20as if to express a discontent.
11:22After that, these are things that we perceive when we work with them,
11:24but yes, we really have the impression that they feel it and that they communicate their emotions in their own way.
11:29Some people say that camouflage is part of a way of communicating their emotions.
11:34Is it true or not, it's hard to show.
11:36If you're familiar with this topic, feel free to provide more info in the comments
11:40or ask questions after the episode.
11:43As always, like the video for more discoveries.
11:46We'll meet again next week for a new episode of The Big Explanation about animals or the environment.
11:51See you!
11:59The Big Explanation