Episode 9: Should we be eating octopus?

are extraordinary animals in all sorts of ways i mean first of all just to look at but then there's all their incredible abilities and the way they can change color and they're so intelligent they can get to recognize individual people they can solve puzzles you know they can do all sorts of stuff so there's so many different angles to this story i think that's what makes it really interesting to Hello

and welcome to Cat Among the Penguins.

I'm Rebecca Nesbitt.

And I'm Jenny Hickman.

Today we're going to be exploring the question of should we be eating octopus that have been caught in the wild? So octopus have been making headlines recently due to a couple of reasons.

Firstly, a big backlash against octopus farming, but also due to a sudden increase in the number of octopus caught in British waters.

So this comes at a time of crisis for the fishing sector, with some rising costs driving vessels out of business.

And initially, the octopus actually made this problem worse.

So when octopus numbers suddenly increased in 2025, this reduced the catch of crabs, lobsters and scallops.

But now it's provided an opportunity with lots of boats actually targeting octopus.

Common octopus are native to the UK, but they're not normally common.

Occasionally, however, their numbers increase and we get an influx.

This famously happened in 1950, for example.

Then in 2025, this happened for the fourth time in 125 years.

It's unfolded as a really interesting story and we explored it in episode seven.

So check out that to get all the background.

But in summary, it seems that with warming waters here in the UK, the octopus could be here to stay.

Yeah and British people tend to be very squeamish about eating octopus so today we're going to be asking whether or not that needs to change.

So there is quite a lot to consider here we need to think about it both ecologically so I do have some questions around both the impact of octopus but also the impact of octopus fishing on marine ecosystems and we also need to think about the fact that octopus are really amazing very intelligent creatures so we also need to consider their welfare.

They're all really good questions.

So thankfully, we have two great guests to answer them.

In episode seven, we met Dr. Bryce Stewart from the Marine Biological Association here in England.

He's been at the forefront of research into the current octopus bloom, and he works very closely with the fishing community.

So he's got insights into how it's been affecting them.

I was also honored to speak to Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith, a philosopher of science at the University of Sydney.

He gave amazing insights into octopus in his book, Other Minds, The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness.

If you haven't read it, then I can really recommend it.

Before

we start, we should say that this one is quite an emotive issue for lots of reasons.

So as normal, we're definitely not telling you what to think here.

But as usual, we would love to hear your comments.

So please come visit us on the Cats Among the Penguins website and get involved in the conversation.

So the first question to start with is what impact has this bloom had? Well, this is what Bryce had to say.

are extraordinary animals in all sorts of ways i mean first of all just to look at but then there's all their incredible abilities and the way they can change color and they're so intelligent they can get to recognize individual people they can solve puzzles you know they can do all sorts of stuff so there's so many different angles to this story i think that's what makes it really interesting to Hello

and welcome to Cat Among the Penguins.

I'm Rebecca Nesbitt.

And I'm Jenny Hickman.

Today we're going to be exploring the question of should we be eating octopus that have been caught in the wild? So octopus have been making headlines recently due to a couple of reasons.

Firstly, a big backlash against octopus farming, but also due to a sudden increase in the number of octopus caught in British waters.

So this comes at a time of crisis for the fishing sector, with some rising costs driving vessels out of business.

And initially, the octopus actually made this problem worse.

So when octopus numbers suddenly increased in 2025, this reduced the catch of crabs, lobsters and scallops.

But now it's provided an opportunity with lots of boats actually targeting octopus.

Common octopus are native to the UK, but they're not normally common.

Occasionally, however, their numbers increase and we get an influx.

This famously happened in 1950, for example.

Then in 2025, this happened for the fourth time in 125 years.

It's unfolded as a really interesting story and we explored it in episode seven.

So check out that to get all the background.

But in summary, it seems that with warming waters here in the UK, the octopus could be here to stay.

Yeah and British people tend to be very squeamish about eating octopus so today we're going to be asking whether or not that needs to change.

So there is quite a lot to consider here we need to think about it both ecologically so I do have some questions around both the impact of octopus but also the impact of octopus fishing on marine ecosystems and we also need to think about the fact that octopus are really amazing very intelligent creatures so we also need to consider their welfare.

They're all really good questions.

So thankfully, we have two great guests to answer them.

In episode seven, we met Dr. Bryce Stewart from the Marine Biological Association here in England.

He's been at the forefront of research into the current octopus bloom, and he works very closely with the fishing community.

So he's got insights into how it's been affecting them.

I was also honored to speak to Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith, a philosopher of science at the University of Sydney.

He gave amazing insights into octopus in his book, Other Minds, The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness.

If you haven't read it, then I can really recommend it.

Before

we start, we should say that this one is quite an emotive issue for lots of reasons.

So as normal, we're definitely not telling you what to think here.

But as usual, we would love to hear your comments.

So please come visit us on the Cats Among the Penguins website and get involved in the conversation.

So the first question to start with is what impact has this bloom had? Well, this is what Bryce had to say.