For the first time in the United States, research with cephalopods might require approval by an ethics committee.
The fact that there wasn't already bothers me. Octopodes are extremely intelligent creatures and we've known this for a while. Not that I think intelligence should be how we base our treatment of animals, but it is one of the bigger factors when laws about this sort of thing get made, so I would have expected it to be taken into account before now.
What about those we eat?
it's really fucking stupid. We give care and consideration to pets, and if we did to pets what we do to the animals we eat, we'd get locked up for years. It's called speciesism.
Protections seem probably more important for putting them through unusual experiences that may involve suffering than killing them for food, as that's essentially predation which they experience as a natural part of life
There's an argument to be had that we as humans are intelligent enough to choose not to put animals through that which is why lots of folks choose to be vegan, but eating animals is more of a personal ethical choice, whereas funding research conducted on animals kinda needs to be a societal one given it's funder by other parts of society, and research is generally for the benefit of society; so society needs to be the ones to decide whether the research is ethical. Not sure I articulated quite what I mmea, but hopefully what I'm trying to say makes sense
There was a whole Dollop episode about octopuses. They're pretty smart and probably deserve it.
EDIT: Fixed my plural!
Weird they live so short
Fun fact, the plural of octopus is actually octopuses, or my favourite, octopodes!
The only one you should ever actually use in English is “octopuses,” which is correctly used by Nature in their article and in the linked NIH proposal. It’s the right term for both everyday use and for academic and legal purposes. Octopus is a common English word and warrants the standard English plural.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Octopuses is the English plural and most commonly used, but I personally use octopodes just cause I just like how it sounds lol.
Honestly octopuses just sounds awkward anyway
