Did you know that companies are racing to develop industrial-scale farming of cephalopods, like octopus? Are you ready for it to come to Canada? Elizabeth May, M.P., is not!
Elizabeth has authorized federal petition e-4312, initiated by the Montreal SPCA with support from Animal Justice, Humane Canada, Last Chance for Animals, the BC SPCA, the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals, the Vancouver Humane Society and the Winnipeg Humane Society. It calls on the government to prohibit the breeding or raising of cephalopods in captivity on Canadian territory and ban the importation of farmed cephalopod products into Canada.
Companies around the world have begun exploring methods of octopus farming, with the intention of raising these intelligent and sentient creatures on a mass scale for meat. One company in Spain has submitted plans for a facility that would breed and slaughter up to a million octopuses per year, beginning as early as this year. Octopuses are sentient, complex, highly intelligent and solitary creatures that require frequent mental stimulation and multifaceted places to live. Proposed farming facilities would see hundreds of them crammed into small pens under unnatural lighting, an environment that would be extremely distressing to them. This is to say nothing of the environmental impact. Given that octopuses are carnivorous, eating up to three times their body weight in other sea creatures each day, they are an unsustainable meat source destined mainly for luxury markets.
We must send a clear message to our government that neither these farms nor their cruel products are welcome in Canada.
You can support this petition by signing it through the link below and sharing as far as you can before the petition closes on May 16th
Government Petition: Ban Octopus Farming in Canada – Animal Justice