Assemblymember Steve Bennett of Ventura has taken to the sea with a CAFO ban for octopi, as environmental groups are describing it.
Bennett’s bill would preemptively ban octopus farming and the sale of such products. The progressive Democrat says that treating the intelligent octopods as if they were sea cows would not be a suitable farming practice and asserts that the state must act before the industry emerges.
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The bill’s environmental sponsors warned that researchers in Spain are exploring ways to capture and kill the eight-armed snail suckers. They reason that Californians have already opposed such confined animal operations by passing the state’s Prop. 12 animal welfare law, among other policies. The advocates argue the resulting waste from the aquaculture facilities would lead to detrimental water quality impacts.
The bill has no opposition and slipped through its first committee this week, like an octopus escaping an aquafarm.
