If you don't like the idea of 'Octopus Farming', please tell the Spanish officials

Please consider signing a petition addressed to public officials, the EU, and everyone else

Dear readers,

second posting today—but this is an issue that needs more attention.

It’s 30 March 2023, around 8:15 p.m. European summer time.

Off the coast of the Canary Isles, the world’s first industrial octopus farm is in the making. From the petition:

Octopuses are seriously smart. They can use tools and solve complex problems, and even feel pain, pleasure, joy and fear!

That’s why scientists are outraged by plans for the world’s first octopus farm in Spain, which would see a MILLION of these mostly solitary creatures crammed into tiny tanks every year, then killed painfully by being frozen alive in icy vats to feed the food market.

It’s torture on an industrial scale.

But we can stop it. Plans for the farm have been submitted to local authorities – and a massive outcry can help prevent this suffering! Add your name now and Avaaz will deliver our voices to local authorities and the EU demanding that octopus farming is banned before it starts!

Please consider signing the petition:

To the President of the Canary Islands, the EU and governments everywhere:

We’re calling on you to reject the plan to build the world's first octopus farm in Spain and ban octopus farming in the EU and around the world, including its import and financing. Octopuses are intelligent, sentient and fascinating animals. Let’s avoid creating more animal suffering for unsustainable and short-term human profit.

Thank you for signing.

If you’d need another reason: check out ‘My Octopus Teacher’ (2020):

Please consider signing the petition. Thank you very much.

Epilogue

If you haven’t read this essay by Amia Srinivasan, appropriately entitled, ‘The Sucker, the Sucker!’ (LRB 39, no. 17, 2017), you should.