A Meat and Dairy Article from All-Creatures.org

 

Victims in the shadows: octopuses, squids and cuttlefishes

FROM There’s an Elephant in the Room blog
July 2021

There is no such thing as a ‘food’ animal. There is no relevant distinction between those whose corpses we casually toss into supermarket trolleys or whose charred remains lie on our plates, and the other creatures who share our homes or our lives. 

Gaetano Dario Gargiulo
Best of Show in the 9th Annual Ocean Art Underwater Photo Contest

Octopus are soft-bodied, eight-limbed molluscs of the order Octopoda. The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids.

This blog was originally inspired by the many excellent articles I’ve read which provide insight to these fascinating creatures. These articles are always popular on social media, even amongst those who would think nothing of devouring these same individuals as a dietary indulgence.

As an animal rights blogger, however fascinating they are, I’m only too aware that alongside approximately 3 trillion of their fellow water-dwellers every year, cephalopods are considered – like every other species on the planet – to exist solely for the use and exploitation of the most brutal and oppressive species that has ever existed. Humans.

So I’d like to stress something really important. There is no such thing as a ‘food’ animal. There is no relevant distinction between those whose corpses we casually toss into supermarket trolleys or whose charred remains lie on our plates, and the other creatures who share our homes or our lives. This also applies in the case of the cephalopod corpses that we, in our arrogance, treat as ingredients, and the stars of the videos and articles below. The concept of ‘food’ animals, like our self-serving laws and our invented conditions for our behaving with basic decency towards other species, are all a fabrication and lead to depravities we can scarcely imagine.

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Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE (PDF)

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