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This week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 3162—also known as “the California Oppose Cruelty to Octopuses (OCTO) Act”—into law. PETA endorsed the bill in its early stages, and groups including Social Compassion in Legislation and the Animal Legal Defense Fund worked hard to garner support for it.
The OCTO Act will make it illegal for anyone in California to engage in the aquaculture, or farming, of octopuses meant for human consumption.
It will also ban business owners and operators from knowingly selling octopuses who came from octopus farms.
Octopuses Are Intelligent, Complex, and Fascinating Animals
Octopuses feel joy and excitement but also pain and fear.
They are extremely intelligent and have been known to do the following:
- Use seashells for protection
- Steal food from traps set by fishers
- Escape from aquariums
- Decorate their homes
They communicate with one another through complex color changes and flashes that humans still don’t fully understand.
Keeping octopuses on farms would lead to unnatural aggression, cannibalism, injuries, and death because they would fight and struggle to escape.
In addition, workers would slaughter octopuses at the end of their miserable lives, inflicting terror and pain by cutting into their brains or clubbing their heads.
You can help prevent such cruelty by never eating octopuses.
Lend Octopuses a Helping Hand
A lifesaving piece of bipartisan legislation, Senate Bill 4810, was recently introduced in Congress. The Opposing the Cultivation and Trade of Octopus Produced through Unethical Strategies (OCTOPUS) Act would ban commercial octopus farming in the U.S. and prohibit the importation of live or dead farmed octopuses (or their meat or derivatives) from outside the country.
If you’re a U.S. resident, please urge your senator to cosponsor the powerful OCTOPUS Act:
Live elsewhere in the world?
Note: PETA supports animal rights and opposes all forms of animal exploitation and educates the public on those issues. PETA does not directly or indirectly participate or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office or any political party.
