What’s California on the verge of banning now? Octopus farming

Amid the sea of bills that California lawmakers waded through Thursday, one they rescued marks a key step forward to ban commercial octopus farming in California.

If Assembly Bill 3162 passes the full Senate before the end of this month and Gov. Gavin Newsom signs it, California could be the first state to ban both the practice of octopus farming and the sale of the farmed creature — even though it hasn’t started.

Octopus farming experiments however, are underway in Spain, Mexico and China. One Spanish company, Nueva Pescanova, plans to open a farm in the Canary Islands.

After hearing about those plans, activist organizations Animal Legal Defense Fund and Social Compassion in Legislation brought the idea of a preemptive ban to the West Coast. They say that octopuses are intelligent beings that can’t be killed humanely, and also argue that farming them would exacerbate climate and sustainability issues.

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“Particularly before the industry gets started, that’s the best time to be doing this kind of legislation,” Assemblymember Steve Bennett told CalMatters.

Bennett, a Democrat from Oxnard, and Assemblymember Laura Friedman, a Democrat from Burbank, co-authored the bill, which passed the Assembly by a vote of 51-10 in April. There is no recorded opposition to the bill so far. The California Restaurant Association told CalMatters it does not have a position on the bill.

The Washington state legislature was the first to pass a bill banning the practice of octopus farming earlier this year, but it does not ban farmed octopus sales. Other states on the Pacific Coast — Oregon and Hawaii — are currently looking at their own legislation.

“Now is the time to take a stand by not only banning commercial industrial octopus farming in the state, but also not supporting its production elsewhere by banning the sale of it within the state,” said Judie Mancuso, CEO of Social Compassion in Legislation.

The issue has also reached Congress. Last month, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, and Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, introduced bipartisan legislation to ban the practice of octopus farming and any imports.

“We believe that if a number of jurisdictions outside of Spain say ‘no,’ maybe that will influence the Spanish government to not put out the red carpet for this company and allow them to do it,” said Nick Sackett, director of legislative affairs at Social Compassion in Legislation.

Octopuses are highly intelligent creatures, said Jennifer Hauge, senior legislative affairs manager at Animal Legal Defense Fund, making it more dangerous and inhumane to hold them in the type of captivity used for farming.

“There would be a high likelihood of aggressive activity and potentially escape,” she said. “Also, there are no known humane methods of slaughtering octopus at present.”

Additionally, because octopuses require a diet of three times their weight in fish to survive, farming could disrupt ecosystems by putting strain on wild fish populations.

“That’s on its face unsustainable,” Sackett said.

Activists have raised environmental concerns, such as a high risk of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff and other pollution.

“You would imagine the same kind of risk that you have with all aquaculture,” Sackett said. “There’s pollution, there’s disease, if any of these farmed fish with disease escape or are accidentally released, they cause havoc on the wild ecosystems.”

Hauge predicts that states on the East Coast will introduce their own legislation in next year’s legislative sessions.

“This is not a flash in the pan,” she said. “Californians would be leading at the beginning of the trend, but hopefully this will be a wave that continues.”