Octopuses are remarkable animals. They can change colors and make patterns in an instant, and they jet out ink to escape predators. They have eight arms, three hearts, and no bones. The latest research even suggests that they can feel light.

Octopuses are also considered one of the smartest invertebrates on Earth. Curious, clever, and independent, these animals are known to use tools, manipulate their environment, fool predators and prey, and escape the most precarious of confines.

These animals deserve to live wild and free in the ocean, where they belong. But now, octopuses are under threat from entrepreneurs looking to factory farm them. Mass farming octopus would be especially cruel. Solitary, intelligent, and fragile, octopuses would likely be frustrated and bored in crowded tanks and get easily injured or killed from crashing into tank walls, fighting, human handling, and changes in water properties. Early trials of octopus farming have shown that about one in five octopuses die before reaching slaughter for market.

Factory farming octopuses would also have devastating effects on wildlife. Octopuses are a carnivorous species who must eat three times their bodyweight to survive, meaning that millions of fish would need to be caught and killed from the wild to sustain the farm, worsening overfishing and potentially killing marine mammals, sharks, sea turtles, and other wildlife in bycatch and ghost nets.

Thankfully, Congress recently introduced the OCTOPUS Act, which would BAN octopus farming in the United States and prohibit imports of farmed octopus meat. Tell your Senators to endorse the OCTOPUS Act now!