Are octopuses smarter than pigs? Should we eat them? Oregon bill to ban octopus farms stirs controversy
Octopuses have nine brains, use tools, have the ability to recognize people and are so bright and brilliant it’d be cruel to farm them for human consumption.So said a stream of octopus enthusiasts, who extolled the many astonishing traits of the beloved, eight-legged cephalopod to a committee of the Oregon Legislature earlier this month. Nearly 70 offered spoken or written testimony in support of a bill that would forbid the farming of octopuses in the state before a single octopus production facility is even proposed.“I urge you to stand on the right side of history by voting in favor of this bill,” wrote Natalia Neal, a Damascus resident, summing up a common sentiment of the group.Many of those impassioned pleas, however, have drawn the skepticism of committee member Rep. Anna Scharf, R-Amity, who said some arguments for the bill — including that farming octopuses would put too much strain on natural resources — were “misleading” and driven by out-of-state organizations and individuals that seek to ban all large-scale farming of meat.“And then I won’t get into a debate about the intellectual ability of an octopus and some of the other things that we kill in our state that have high intellectual capability,” said Scharf, who works on a fourth-generation family farm growing wheat, hazelnuts and other crops.The bill, too, has drawn the ire of the Oregon Farm Bureau, which says it’d set “a concerning precedent” of prohibiting the farming of an entire genus of animal without “clear, science-based justification.” And so the bill has launched a wide-ranging discussion that has stirred deeper and sometimes uncomfortable questions about the intellectual abilities of the animals Oregonians eat and the industrial production of meat in a society in which many are resolving to up their daily protein intake.Is an octopus really as smart as a pig or a cow, two of the country’s most popular sources of meat, but which have the ability to play games, single out their favorite humans or understand human hand gestures?And how resource intensive is it to produce a pound of octopus versus chicken, pork, beef or fish?HB 2557 also has sparked conversations about cultural bias against the octopus as a food source, given that it’s a valued part of many world cuisines, including Asian, Mediterranean and Pacific Islander. Environmental worriesRep. Zach Hudson, D-Troutdale, said his motivations for sponsoring the bill don’t have anything to do with all of that.“This bill isn’t about whether we should eat octopus,” Hudson said. “It’s about whether they should be farmed in captivity.”Rep. Zach Hudson, D-Troutdale, said when he first heard of the idea of banning octopus farming, he thought it “sounded like a joke.” Hudson said the bill wouldn't prohibit the buying or selling of wild octopuses or keeping them as pets or for research. (File photo/January 2025) Mark Graves/The OregonianHudson said he was primarily drawn to signing on as a chief sponsor out of concern that farmed octopus isn’t a sustainable food source because of the large amount of fish and crab they eat and that they might be carriers of parasites or disease that could be spread through wastewater to the Oregon coast. But he said he also imagines that if such facilities were allowed, octopuses would be raised in small plexiglass aquariums stacked one on top of another, in conditions that are downright cruel.“A farming operation, designed to maximize profit, would presumably pack as many octopuses as possible into small barren tanks,” Hudson told the House Committee on Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources and Water. There are currently no food-producing octopus farms in the world, though a company in Spain has said it is close to perfecting the necessary technology. Oregon’s bill would make the state the third state in the nation, behind Washington and California, to forbid this emerging form of aquaculture.“It’s about stopping inhumane practices before they start in Oregon and sending a clear message to other regions who might be considering allowing this practice that the west coastline is unified,” said Rep. Courtney Neron, D-Wilsonville, chief co-sponsor of the bill.Rep. Courtney Neron, D-Wilsonville, is seen here in January 2025. She said during a February hearing that octopuses "are without a doubt one of my favorite animals to learn about."Mark Graves/The OregonianAnimal welfare advocates say they don’t want to argue whether long-established forms of U.S. meat production, such as farming cattle, pigs and chicken for food, may be more taxing on the environment or ethically questionable, given the intelligence of octopuses. The goal of this bill isn’t to squash already established meat production industries, but to protect the octopus, they said.“What it boils down to is it’s not really the job of legislators to put people out of business,” said Amanda Fox, executive director of Animal Rights Initiative, a national nonprofit that is a major driving force behind the bill in Oregon and bills in at least six other states.“This is a preventative issue,” Fox continued. “And most people really support not expanding farming to another type of intelligent species since we’re having trouble regulating the current types of farming.”A similar bill before the U.S. Congress fizzled last year. So did one in Hawaii, though backers this year refiled two bills, which both sailed through their first committee meetings last week. An octopus ‘moment’It’s clear octopuses are having a moment, brought on in part by “My Octopus Teacher,” which won an Oscar for best documentary in 2021, and the best-selling 2022 book “Remarkably Bright Creatures” about a giant Pacific octopus that starts a friendship with a nighttime janitor at a fictional aquarium.In 2022, the United Kingdom’s Parliament passed an act declaring octopuses sentient forms of life with feelings and individual personalities. The act also found this to be the case for a host of other living beings, including crabs, lobsters and every animal with a backbone, including chickens, pigs, cows, fish, frogs and mice.Observational reports also have documented octopuses squirting jets of water at people they didn’t like or one stealthy octopus who crept into another tank to eat live fish and covered its tracks by closing the lid when it was done. Studies have relayed multiple instances where octopuses have wielded jellyfish tentacles as a possible form of defense.But as the public’s understanding of the octopus’ cognitive ability grows, so has researchers’ caution about anthropomorphizing them and our understanding of how their brains work. According to various studies, octopuses have about 500 million neurons among their nine so-called brains, while dogs have about that many in their cerebral cortex alone. Domestic pigs have about 430 million. Humans, as a point of comparison, have 86 billion. The Octopus vulgaris has been proposed as a farmed source of food. Their life span is one to two years. (File photo)Lori M. Nichols | NJ Advance Media for NJ.comEven so, unlike other mammalian brains, a 2022 study found a significant number of the octopuses’ neuron power is decentralized in the mini-brains in each of its arms, which control their independent movement. That’s led to speculation about whether they’re capable of possessing consciousness as we know it.Much also remains unknown about how a commercial farming operation in Oregon would look, if one ever got off the ground.The world’s closest one into being is under development by the Spanish company, Nueva Pescanova, which is working to open a facility in the Canary Islands. News that broke of the planned facility in 2022 created an uproar, including over what’s seen as a slow and painful way of bringing on their deaths through submerging them in ice baths.There’s also disagreement about how much strain octopus farming would place on the environment. Animal advocates say it takes three pounds of fish or crab to produce one pound of octopus meat. Nueva Pescanova told NPR in 2024 that it planned to thoughtfully source its feed, like from discards from fishing or other sustainable sources.The Oregon Farm Bureau’s lobbyist, Ryan Krabill, said his organization objects to the movement to stop an entire food producing industry before it begins. He argues that as long as public health and safety rules are followed, the Legislature shouldn’t open “a Pandora’s box” into forbidding the farming of certain food sources because of an animal’s intellectual abilities.’Appreciate all animals’ But the bill has received a tidal wave of support. Of the more than 70 people who spoke at the early February hearing or sent written testimony, only four were opposed to the bill. That included Krabill and a woman who thinks octopus farming could be a boon to Oregon’s economy.Much more frequent were people who urged the Legislature to consider octopuses’ potential future. “These are intelligent creatures that don’t deserve this torture,” wrote Milwaukie resident Sarah Vostal.Added Brenda Hess of Forest Grove: “Stop hurting all animals. …Please love and appreciate all animals.”The Octopus vulgaris has been proposed as a farmed source of food. (File photo)Lori M. Nichols | NJ Advance MedSome of the testimony was disputed by knowledgeable sources.Fox, the executive director of Animal Rights Initiative, told the legislative committee earlier this month that “because of their exceptional cognitive abilities, octopuses are known for escaping — making them more likely than any other aquacultured species to spread disease, parasites, and genetic mutations on farms and to wild populations. For example, multiple sources report frequent escape attempts at the Seaside Aquarium, where octopuses are willing to sustain injuries in their pursuits.”When The Oregonian/OregonLive asked Fox for her source, she referenced a 2013 Trip Advisor comment in which someone who said they visited the aquarium said they saw an octopus “constantly swimming itself in to the rock wall trying to escape or trying to swim.” Fox also cited a 2015 online travel magazine article about the Seaside Aquarium that alluded to some octopuses trying “to escape their tanks more than others.” Keith Chandler, manager of the Seaside Aquarium, said on rare occasions an octopus has crawled out of its tank out of curiosity or confusion in his 44 years there.“They’re not scheming and plotting and trying to come up with ways to hotwire the car and drive back to the ocean,” Chandler said.Assistant manager Tiffany Boothe said the aquarium keeps its three octopuses well-fed, so they don’t have a reason to want to leave. “We feed them fresh razor clams and Dungeness crabs on a regular basis.” In 2016, however, “Inky” the octopus made worldwide headlines when he escaped his tank at a New Zealand aquarium, squeezed through a 50-meter drain pipe and made it to the ocean. The public debated Inky’s intentions, however — unsure whether the aging creature was curious, hungry or experiencing what experts call “senescence,” a dementia-like stage of odd behavior and confusion that octopuses go through before they die. Fox also said commercial octopus farms in Oregon could decimate the state’s crabbing industry by consuming more crab than it could produce. The Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, however, hasn’t taken a stand on the bill. And its executive director, Crystal Adams, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that her initial impression is that commercial octopus farming is “not necessarily something that would be an endangerment so far.”Rep. Anna Scharf R-Amity. Beth NakamuraScharf’s skepticism about a need to ban octopus farming appears in the minority. No other lawmaker on the committee expressed an opinion during the bill’s hearing and its co-chairs either didn’t respond to Oregonian/OregonLive queries or said they had no comment. Scharf, however, told the news organization she’s willing to take a stand.“Those things are red flags for me,” she said. “I feel the Legislature has better things to work on than banning an industry that does not even exist in Oregon and that very little is known about.”— Aimee Green is covering the Oregon Legislature this session. Reach her at 503-294-5119, agreen@oregonian.com or @o_aimee.Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.
The bill has drawn enormous public support but also raised fundamental questions about the intelligence of all the animals Oregonians eat.
Octopuses have nine brains, use tools, have the ability to recognize people and are so bright and brilliant it’d be cruel to farm them for human consumption.
So said a stream of octopus enthusiasts, who extolled the many astonishing traits of the beloved, eight-legged cephalopod to a committee of the Oregon Legislature earlier this month. Nearly 70 offered spoken or written testimony in support of a bill that would forbid the farming of octopuses in the state before a single octopus production facility is even proposed.
“I urge you to stand on the right side of history by voting in favor of this bill,” wrote Natalia Neal, a Damascus resident, summing up a common sentiment of the group.
Many of those impassioned pleas, however, have drawn the skepticism of committee member Rep. Anna Scharf, R-Amity, who said some arguments for the bill — including that farming octopuses would put too much strain on natural resources — were “misleading” and driven by out-of-state organizations and individuals that seek to ban all large-scale farming of meat.
“And then I won’t get into a debate about the intellectual ability of an octopus and some of the other things that we kill in our state that have high intellectual capability,” said Scharf, who works on a fourth-generation family farm growing wheat, hazelnuts and other crops.
The bill, too, has drawn the ire of the Oregon Farm Bureau, which says it’d set “a concerning precedent” of prohibiting the farming of an entire genus of animal without “clear, science-based justification.”
And so the bill has launched a wide-ranging discussion that has stirred deeper and sometimes uncomfortable questions about the intellectual abilities of the animals Oregonians eat and the industrial production of meat in a society in which many are resolving to up their daily protein intake.
Is an octopus really as smart as a pig or a cow, two of the country’s most popular sources of meat, but which have the ability to play games, single out their favorite humans or understand human hand gestures?
And how resource intensive is it to produce a pound of octopus versus chicken, pork, beef or fish?
HB 2557 also has sparked conversations about cultural bias against the octopus as a food source, given that it’s a valued part of many world cuisines, including Asian, Mediterranean and Pacific Islander.
Environmental worries
Rep. Zach Hudson, D-Troutdale, said his motivations for sponsoring the bill don’t have anything to do with all of that.
“This bill isn’t about whether we should eat octopus,” Hudson said. “It’s about whether they should be farmed in captivity.”
Rep. Zach Hudson, D-Troutdale, said when he first heard of the idea of banning octopus farming, he thought it “sounded like a joke.” Hudson said the bill wouldn't prohibit the buying or selling of wild octopuses or keeping them as pets or for research. (File photo/January 2025) Mark Graves/The Oregonian
Hudson said he was primarily drawn to signing on as a chief sponsor out of concern that farmed octopus isn’t a sustainable food source because of the large amount of fish and crab they eat and that they might be carriers of parasites or disease that could be spread through wastewater to the Oregon coast. But he said he also imagines that if such facilities were allowed, octopuses would be raised in small plexiglass aquariums stacked one on top of another, in conditions that are downright cruel.
“A farming operation, designed to maximize profit, would presumably pack as many octopuses as possible into small barren tanks,” Hudson told the House Committee on Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources and Water.
There are currently no food-producing octopus farms in the world, though a company in Spain has said it is close to perfecting the necessary technology. Oregon’s bill would make the state the third state in the nation, behind Washington and California, to forbid this emerging form of aquaculture.
“It’s about stopping inhumane practices before they start in Oregon and sending a clear message to other regions who might be considering allowing this practice that the west coastline is unified,” said Rep. Courtney Neron, D-Wilsonville, chief co-sponsor of the bill.
Rep. Courtney Neron, D-Wilsonville, is seen here in January 2025. She said during a February hearing that octopuses "are without a doubt one of my favorite animals to learn about."Mark Graves/The Oregonian
Animal welfare advocates say they don’t want to argue whether long-established forms of U.S. meat production, such as farming cattle, pigs and chicken for food, may be more taxing on the environment or ethically questionable, given the intelligence of octopuses. The goal of this bill isn’t to squash already established meat production industries, but to protect the octopus, they said.
“What it boils down to is it’s not really the job of legislators to put people out of business,” said Amanda Fox, executive director of Animal Rights Initiative, a national nonprofit that is a major driving force behind the bill in Oregon and bills in at least six other states.
“This is a preventative issue,” Fox continued. “And most people really support not expanding farming to another type of intelligent species since we’re having trouble regulating the current types of farming.”
A similar bill before the U.S. Congress fizzled last year. So did one in Hawaii, though backers this year refiled two bills, which both sailed through their first committee meetings last week.
An octopus ‘moment’
It’s clear octopuses are having a moment, brought on in part by “My Octopus Teacher,” which won an Oscar for best documentary in 2021, and the best-selling 2022 book “Remarkably Bright Creatures” about a giant Pacific octopus that starts a friendship with a nighttime janitor at a fictional aquarium.
In 2022, the United Kingdom’s Parliament passed an act declaring octopuses sentient forms of life with feelings and individual personalities. The act also found this to be the case for a host of other living beings, including crabs, lobsters and every animal with a backbone, including chickens, pigs, cows, fish, frogs and mice.
Observational reports also have documented octopuses squirting jets of water at people they didn’t like or one stealthy octopus who crept into another tank to eat live fish and covered its tracks by closing the lid when it was done. Studies have relayed multiple instances where octopuses have wielded jellyfish tentacles as a possible form of defense.
But as the public’s understanding of the octopus’ cognitive ability grows, so has researchers’ caution about anthropomorphizing them and our understanding of how their brains work. According to various studies, octopuses have about 500 million neurons among their nine so-called brains, while dogs have about that many in their cerebral cortex alone. Domestic pigs have about 430 million. Humans, as a point of comparison, have 86 billion.
The Octopus vulgaris has been proposed as a farmed source of food. Their life span is one to two years. (File photo)Lori M. Nichols | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Even so, unlike other mammalian brains, a 2022 study found a significant number of the octopuses’ neuron power is decentralized in the mini-brains in each of its arms, which control their independent movement. That’s led to speculation about whether they’re capable of possessing consciousness as we know it.
Much also remains unknown about how a commercial farming operation in Oregon would look, if one ever got off the ground.
The world’s closest one into being is under development by the Spanish company, Nueva Pescanova, which is working to open a facility in the Canary Islands. News that broke of the planned facility in 2022 created an uproar, including over what’s seen as a slow and painful way of bringing on their deaths through submerging them in ice baths.
There’s also disagreement about how much strain octopus farming would place on the environment. Animal advocates say it takes three pounds of fish or crab to produce one pound of octopus meat. Nueva Pescanova told NPR in 2024 that it planned to thoughtfully source its feed, like from discards from fishing or other sustainable sources.
The Oregon Farm Bureau’s lobbyist, Ryan Krabill, said his organization objects to the movement to stop an entire food producing industry before it begins. He argues that as long as public health and safety rules are followed, the Legislature shouldn’t open “a Pandora’s box” into forbidding the farming of certain food sources because of an animal’s intellectual abilities.
’Appreciate all animals’
But the bill has received a tidal wave of support. Of the more than 70 people who spoke at the early February hearing or sent written testimony, only four were opposed to the bill. That included Krabill and a woman who thinks octopus farming could be a boon to Oregon’s economy.
Much more frequent were people who urged the Legislature to consider octopuses’ potential future.
“These are intelligent creatures that don’t deserve this torture,” wrote Milwaukie resident Sarah Vostal.
Added Brenda Hess of Forest Grove: “Stop hurting all animals. …Please love and appreciate all animals.”
The Octopus vulgaris has been proposed as a farmed source of food. (File photo)Lori M. Nichols | NJ Advance Med
Some of the testimony was disputed by knowledgeable sources.
Fox, the executive director of Animal Rights Initiative, told the legislative committee earlier this month that “because of their exceptional cognitive abilities, octopuses are known for escaping — making them more likely than any other aquacultured species to spread disease, parasites, and genetic mutations on farms and to wild populations. For example, multiple sources report frequent escape attempts at the Seaside Aquarium, where octopuses are willing to sustain injuries in their pursuits.”
When The Oregonian/OregonLive asked Fox for her source, she referenced a 2013 Trip Advisor comment in which someone who said they visited the aquarium said they saw an octopus “constantly swimming itself in to the rock wall trying to escape or trying to swim.” Fox also cited a 2015 online travel magazine article about the Seaside Aquarium that alluded to some octopuses trying “to escape their tanks more than others.”
Keith Chandler, manager of the Seaside Aquarium, said on rare occasions an octopus has crawled out of its tank out of curiosity or confusion in his 44 years there.
“They’re not scheming and plotting and trying to come up with ways to hotwire the car and drive back to the ocean,” Chandler said.
Assistant manager Tiffany Boothe said the aquarium keeps its three octopuses well-fed, so they don’t have a reason to want to leave. “We feed them fresh razor clams and Dungeness crabs on a regular basis.”
In 2016, however, “Inky” the octopus made worldwide headlines when he escaped his tank at a New Zealand aquarium, squeezed through a 50-meter drain pipe and made it to the ocean. The public debated Inky’s intentions, however — unsure whether the aging creature was curious, hungry or experiencing what experts call “senescence,” a dementia-like stage of odd behavior and confusion that octopuses go through before they die.
Fox also said commercial octopus farms in Oregon could decimate the state’s crabbing industry by consuming more crab than it could produce. The Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, however, hasn’t taken a stand on the bill. And its executive director, Crystal Adams, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that her initial impression is that commercial octopus farming is “not necessarily something that would be an endangerment so far.”
Rep. Anna Scharf R-Amity. Beth Nakamura
Scharf’s skepticism about a need to ban octopus farming appears in the minority. No other lawmaker on the committee expressed an opinion during the bill’s hearing and its co-chairs either didn’t respond to Oregonian/OregonLive queries or said they had no comment. Scharf, however, told the news organization she’s willing to take a stand.
“Those things are red flags for me,” she said. “I feel the Legislature has better things to work on than banning an industry that does not even exist in Oregon and that very little is known about.”
— Aimee Green is covering the Oregon Legislature this session. Reach her at 503-294-5119, agreen@oregonian.com or @o_aimee.
Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.