The National Aquaculture Association and the Hawaii Aquaculture and Aquaponics Association submitted comments yesterday opposing HB 365, a bill to ban octopus farming, to be heard today in the Hawaiian Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food Systems.

Click Here to View NAA's Comment Letter

Animal rights activists have falsely claimed octopus can be farmed and supported their argument for a ban based upon additional false claims of unregulated drug use, discharge of nutrients to coastal environments, risk to human health by pathogens and parasites, and animal abuse. Octopus farming is not feasible, and their array of false claims could be focused on any farmed aquatic animal. 

The NAA recommends:

• Check your state for new, introduced legislation banning octopus farming.  This is simple to do.  Search for your legislature website and use the provided search box to find introduced bills using the search term “octopus.”
• Inform the bill sponsors and referral legislative committees of the importance of farmed seafood and recreational farmed bait, aquarium fish and aquatic animals stocked for fishing or at-risk species recovery, the false claims used to support legislation and the array of federal and state regulations governing aquaculture and typical animal husbandry practices which prevent the outcomes falsely predicted.
• If you find ban octopus legislation, contact your state fishery and agriculture agencies to inform them of the legislation and emphasize bill supporters are not concerned with farmed aquatic animal care or improving farming practices.
• Contact the NAA Office, naa@nationalaquaculture.org, to inform us of the legislation.