Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bipartisan invoice Friday making it a criminal offense to farm octopuses for human consumption in California.
The new legislation makes it unlawful to boost and breed octopuses in state waters or in aquaculture tanks based mostly on land inside the state. It additionally prevents enterprise homeowners and operators from knowingly collaborating within the sale of an octopus — no matter its provenance — that has been raised to be eaten by individuals.
The textual content of the legislation acknowledges that octopuses are “very smart, curious, problem-solving animals” which are aware, sentient and expertise “ache, stress, and concern, in addition to pleasure, equanimity, and social bonds.” It goes on to notice that in analysis research, these eight-legged marine invertebrates have demonstrated long-term reminiscence in addition to the power to acknowledge particular person individuals.
In one experiment, eight large Pacific octopuses had been launched to 2 individuals over a two-week interval on the Seattle Aquarium. One in every of them all the time approached with meals in hand, which they gave to the octopuses. The opposite carried a bristly stick, with which they used to scratch the cephalopods’ delicate pores and skin.
On the finish of two weeks, the octopuses’ responses to the 2 individuals had been considerably totally different. When the stick-carrier approached, the animals would transfer away and line up their water jets towards the offender so they may make a fast get-away if needed. However when feeder got here calling, they ambled as much as the facet of the tank and turned their jets away.
Proponents of the brand new legislation stated it positions California as a pacesetter in humane aquaculture. They level to a rising physique of analysis that reveals elevating octopuses for meals is merciless, inefficient and detrimental to the surroundings.
California is now the second state — after Washington — to ban octopus farming. Related laws has additionally been launched within the U.S. Senate and in Hawaii.
“We all know that what occurs in California has an impression on what occurs federally,” Jennifer Jacquet, a professor of environmental science and coverage on the College of Miami, stated when the invoice cleared the legislature. “Individuals wish to preserve octopuses wild.”