After years of clashes from a distance with animal advocacy organizations, the multinational company Nueva Pescanova has officially declared the project to create an intensive octopus farm in Gran Canaria closed. The file containing all the investigative phases of this project, which was planned to occupy an area of over 52,000 square meters, will be closed even before the Canary Islands authorities had reached a decision on what was, in absolute terms, the first octopus farming project on a planetary scale. Nueva Pescanova intended to produce three thousand tons of octopus per year, destined for the food market: an idea that had immediately raised protests from many animal protection organizations around the world. A campaign known in Italy thanks to the activism of Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), to whom we owe our gratitude.
Octopuses are mollusks with exceptional behavioral characteristics – which have led to their recognition as sentient beings – capable of performing complex operations, using objects and identifying strategies useful for their survival. A reality established by science which, unfortunately, has not made the idea of creating an intensive farm for these animals incompatible. The paradox of the octopus is to be found precisely in research projects and in the spread of videos that have shown the general public the great qualities of the octopus (My Octopus Teacher produced by Netflix and Luminous Creatures by director Olivia Newman) but which, paradoxically, have also increased market demand and therefore fishing activities.
The idea of being able to create a farm intended for the intensive farming of octopuses was presented to the market as a necessity for the conservation of the species, currently in difficulty due to intensive fishing which often translates into poaching operations. In reality, no account was taken of the difficulties in farming a solitary, territorial and highly intelligent species, and of the resulting suffering that would have been caused to the animals. This lie about species conservation did not prevent the word “end” from being put on the Nueva Pescanova project, and the associations have already made it known that they will not stop, in order to prevent future revisions and re-proposals of a cruel idea.
The battle must therefore continue, especially because the Spanish company has stated that abandoning the creation of the Gran Canaria farm does not at all mean giving up the octopus farming project, which it says it is ready to carry out in other territories. It will be necessary not to lower our guard to prevent what has been closed down in Spanish waters from resurfacing elsewhere, perhaps in countries with more permissive environmental and animal protection legislation.