Octopus farming (1 Viewer)

[MiddleRiver]

So would you say that farming, say elephants for meat is precisely the same as farming chickens for meat, or herding and then killing wild dolphins in Japan the same as shooting rabbits?

Degree of intelligence, method of death, other unknown factors as per the article. (The article does infer it is objectively worse in several ways)


You aren't going to unwind millenia of domestication of farm animals just like that. (Although good luck, and I know people are trying). It's worth bringing up and trying to stop some new form of animal torture before it gets off the ground, surely????

Choose your battles ...

'Charismatic megafauna'. Elephants represent wild africa, disney movies, The Jungle Book. Cows and chickens, not so much. So you are ok with one but not the other based on either the fact that they have been exploited for longer ('domesticated') or that one is condsidered cute/valuable/noble and the other not?
Sorry, I love Octopii and I'm against farming meat and fish in general. But it's uniquely human to make such value judgements 'i'm against _____' while roasting a steak on the barby ;-)

 

[MiddleRiver]

I would conclude this discussion by point out that I find octopus farming senseless from the only practical point of view I can see.

Octopus tastes like storyfoam

Actually 'pulpo' in olive oil, on good bread, is sublime. Part of my memories of Spain.
I was a lactovegetarian for nearly a decade BITD. Now we try to be locavores. Not sure it's ethically defensible, but it feels like a step in the right direction. If I could fish Octopus locally I might. But I won't support industrialized farming of them.

BTW, not meaning to sound judgemental. We all make our own deal with the devil - carbon footprint of birding travel certainly comes to mind ;-)

 

[dantheman]

'Charismatic megafauna'. Elephants represent wild africa, disney movies, The Jungle Book. Cows and chickens, not so much. So you are ok with one but not the other based on either the fact that they have been exploited for longer ('domesticated') or that one is condsidered cute/valuable/noble and the other not?
Sorry, I love Octopii and I'm against farming meat and fish in general. But it's uniquely human to make such value judgements 'i'm against _____' while roasting a steak on the barby ;-)

Who said there was anything wrong about making value judgements? We all have hypocrisy, I guess you wear clothes, have flown or driven etc etc etc. We have to judge things ... to say otherwise is just plain silly. It's part of being human.

It's kind of necessary to make value judgements if we are not to have a totally anarchistic outlook on life. (I expect there's a psychology term for it).

Does a baby crying because it's hungry and 10 minutes late for a feed have the same weight to you as a child sold into sex slavery? I presume so ...



I had a vegan friend who didn't eat mushrooms because they were perhaps sentient (seems they are), and some would argue we shouldn't eat plants either ... it can be taken to whatever lengths you like, and whilst the planet may be better off without us at all ( ;-) ) a degree of pragmatism (and understanding others come from a different viewpoint which may have some validity, or at least they labour under that impression) seems in order - in my humble opinion anyway.


(I'm basing elephants as an example on their degree of sentience, and a respect for it, not because I like disney movies or saw Dumbo as a child ...)

 

[dantheman]

Anyway, think of the octopuses ...

cute octopus pics - Google Search

 

[MiddleRiver]

Who said there was anything wrong about making value judgements? We all have hypocrisy, I guess you wear clothes, have flown or driven etc etc etc. We have to judge things ... to say otherwise is just plain silly. It's part of being human.

It's kind of necessary to make value judgements if we are not to have a totally anarchistic outlook on life. (I expect there's a psychology term for it).

Does a baby crying because it's hungry have the same weight to you as a child sold into sex slavery? I presume so ...



I had a vegan friend who didn't eat mushrooms because they were perhaps sentient (seems they are), and some would argue we shouldn't eat plants either ... it can be taken to whatever lengths you like, and whilst the planet may be better off without us at all ( ;-) ) a degree of pragmatism (and understanding others come from a different viewpoint which may have some validity, or at least they labour under that impression) seems in order - in my humble opinion anyway.


(I'm basing elephants as an example on their degree of sentience, and a respect for it, not because I like disney movies or saw Dumbo as a child ...)

You have something against Dumbo??? NOW I'm offended!

Seriously... I do in fact make decisions every day. We eat free range locally sourced animal protein unless we happen to be in a fancy restaurant where I want a fillet or something (rare, as in once a year or so?). We can dissect our choices ad infinitum. My point regarding our ability to judge species on seemingly random criteria just baffles me. Cow vs dog vs horse vs cat? Is there that much difference?

I do love mushrooms and one distinction might be that I'm eating the fruiting body of a huge mycelium mat. So I think of it like eating an apple. THey are designed to ripen and fall off (or make spores then whither). But do they feel pain? Yikes, now I'm busted because I never worried about that!

AT the end of the day, I figure we are part of the natural cycle of kill and be killed. We eat something and transform it into something else. I think it's maybe just that we should agree to partake in a more 'natural' context - to which densely-packed, artificially housed, octopii does not belong. I think we agree on that!

 

[dantheman]

You have something against Dumbo??? NOW I'm offended!

Seriously... I do in fact make decisions every day. We eat free range locally sourced animal protein unless we happen to be in a fancy restaurant where I want a fillet or something (rare, as in once a year or so?). We can dissect our choices ad infinitum. My point regarding our ability to judge species on seemingly random criteria just baffles me. Cow vs dog vs horse vs cat? Is there that much difference?

I do love mushrooms and one distinction might be that I'm eating the fruiting body of a huge mycelium mat. So I think of it like eating an apple. THey are designed to ripen and fall off (or make spores then whither). But do they feel pain? Yikes, now I'm busted because I never worried about that!

AT the end of the day, I figure we are part of the natural cycle of kill and be killed. We eat something and transform it into something else. I think it's maybe just that we should agree to partake in a more 'natural' context - to which densely-packed, artificially housed, octopii does not belong. I think we agree on that!

I think we do agree on more on this than the arguing would seem to indicate, perhaps (but it still feels a bit much like people just want to argue lol). I think some of the species you mention are difficult to judge (and I wouldn't attempt to right now). Excepting that dogs and cats are predators, even worse to eat them in terms of embodied energy resources, perhaps more intelligent, and generally kept and killed more inhumanely (dagnabbit - I'm thinking of differences and judging!) I do more readily understand people eating cows ... conditioning? purpose? And I don't even really like cats or dogs ...

I have nothing against Dumbo - my point was that wasn't my prime motivation for not eating elephants ...

 

[vergan]

This is posted in conservation forum, and in terms of conservation, and conservation alone, this is great news that mean a future reduction on the pressure of fishing wild (and some, depleted) octopus populations.

 

[dantheman]

This is posted in conservation forum, and in terms of conservation, and conservation alone, this is great news that mean a future reduction on the pressure of fishing wild (and some, depleted) octopus populations.

One thing is that you can't consider anything in complete isolation. (And there isn't an animal welfare/ethics subforum on here)


There are also environmental concerns as per the article (and salmon fisheries anyone?), not to mention that the pressures will take a while to reduce on wild populations. Perhaps conceivable that more people will take to eating octopus more regularly, thus not decreasing pressure on wild populations?? Who knows?!)

 

[MiddleRiver]

One thing is that you can't consider anything in complete isolation. (And there isn't an animal welfare/ethics subforum on here)


There are also environmental concerns as per the article (and salmon fisheries anyone?), not to mention that the pressures will take a while to reduce on wild populations. Perhaps conceivable that more people will take to eating octopus more regularly, thus not decreasing pressure on wild populations?? Who knows?!)

Indeed, very complicated. In sustainable design we talked about analyzing 'cradle to cradle'. But there are soooo many unintended consequences.
Me, I'd rather eat less, make it more expensive (valued), and don't farm it. If harvested, do it wild-caught based on strictly evidence based sustainability figures.
Or better yet, eat more veggies or plant protein instead ;-)

 

[vergan]

One thing is that you can't consider anything in complete isolation. (And there isn't an animal welfare/ethics subforum on here)


There are also environmental concerns as per the article (and salmon fisheries anyone?), not to mention that the pressures will take a while to reduce on wild populations. Perhaps conceivable that more people will take to eating octopus more regularly, thus not decreasing pressure on wild populations?? Who knows?!)

You are certainly right about not taking any issue just on isolation. Still to me is it great news (and I wish the industry will improve farming of other species, some like eel in the East Atlantic are just really endangered)
Welfare/ethics is a really complex issue, and anyone has its own take, but checking data and analyze it, like in terms of species status, potential recoveries, current trend, and so on, can be done.

So many unknowns, we can of course do nothing and keep things as they are, because, who knows?

 

[Strontium Dog]

I've always found it strange that a very large amount of vegetarians will happily eat fish.

Someone who eats fish is not a vegetarian.

 

[Trinovid]

I've never eaten octopus (on principle...

Therefore you condemn people who have eaten for as long as they can remember and judge yourself superior. A new low indeed.

 

[dantheman]

You are certainly right about not taking any issue just on isolation. Still to me is it great news (and I wish the industry will improve farming of other species, some like eel in the East Atlantic are just really endangered)
Welfare/ethics is a really complex issue, and anyone has its own take, but checking data and analyze it, like in terms of species status, potential recoveries, current trend, and so on, can be done.

So many unknowns, we can of course do nothing and keep things as they are, because, who knows?

Better news to me would be a decision not to eat octopus, maybe at the UN level or something, based on some criteria of intelligence etc (bit like the moratorium on whale hunting?)

I appreciate I seem to be in a minority when it comes to this kind of thing though!

 

[dantheman]

Therefore you condemn people who have eaten for as long as they can remember and judge yourself superior. A new low indeed.

So having some principles is a low? Note the smiley in my post ...

 

[Trinovid]

So having some principles is a low? Note the smiley in my post ...

The principles of having the UN tell people they can't eat what they've always eaten because you don't like it, and then claiming superiority. Sounds pretty familiar.

 

[dantheman]

The principles of having the UN tell people they can't eat what they've always eaten because you don't like it, and then claiming superiority. Sounds pretty familiar.

You've kind of lost me there, sorry.

 

[dantheman]

Anyway, we're all entitled to our opinion. I checked out the topic on twitter earlier today -

https://twitter.com/search?q=octopus%20farm&src=typed_query&f=top

 

[Strontium Dog]

Therefore you condemn people who have eaten for as long as they can remember and judge yourself superior. A new low indeed.

I didn't see him proclaim himself to be superior?

 

[vergan]

Anyway, we're all entitled to our opinion. I checked out the topic on twitter earlier today -

https://twitter.com/search?q=octopus%20farm&src=typed_query&f=top

we are entitled to our opinion and our own moral thinking. From don't caring at all, to strictly avoid anything coming from animals, there is a continuous of different moral/decisions/opinions. All are equally valid.

 

[Trinovid]

I didn't see him proclaim himself to be superior?

That's what it means when one claims right to determine that others need to stop doing whatever it is that he objects to. In one broad stroke he condemns a large swath of humanity.

Much has been said about wrongs committed by people crossing the oceans and forcing their views on others, only to continue doing the same thing, very often by those willing to most vociferously condemn those who came before. It's bad when people they disapprove of do something, but completely acceptable when the done by oneself. Not cool, but being the politically correct view, it gains the support of others, to vilify the ones not chanting the same mantra.