A Wave of Change: Banning Octopus Factory Farming with Amanda Fox, Brenna Anderst & Allie Taylor

I think sometimes we get so mired in the negatives at doing animal rights work that it's just so exciting to talk to some folks who are actually getting some stuff done, are actually saving some animals. And our guests today are Amanda Fox, who is the executive director of the Animal Rights Initiative, which is based in the state of Washington. Though from what I can see, has a reach well beyond that state, and she works there on both legislative advocacy efforts and other types of campaigns.

Allie Taylor, who has been on the podcast before, of course, is the president of Voters for Animal Rights, or VFAR, where she has led numerous legislative campaigns in New York City and in New York State. And Brenna Anderst, who is the senior policy advisor at the Humane League, where she provides support to members of the Animal Policy Alliance through local, state and federal policy research, model legislation drafting, and legislative and campaign strategy development.

I'm so excited to have you all here today, and I'm so excited to be talking about something that happened that, that actually worked. And I'm really excited to be talking about octopuses ' cause like who doesn't love an octopus? Amanda, let's start with you before we actually get to octopuses specifically.

And I do believe that is the proper plural, but tell me if I'm wrong. I'm sure that all of you have had to learn what is the proper plural for octopus. But can you just set the stage a bit and tell us a little about the Animal Rights Initiative and what it is and your work there?

[00:01:32] Amanda Fox: Thank you so much for asking and for having me. My name's Amanda Fox, executive Director, um, founder of Animal Rights Initiative. We did start the charity in 2017, in Seattle, just as kind of a vegan outreach, essentially, different forms of vegan outreach. And then honestly, we just realized more and more animals were being killed every single year.

So we weren't gonna win anything with vegan outreach alone, so we added on producer based outreach and did that extremely hard for several years. And then finally we were like, we have gotta make this animal abuse illegal, so we gotta figure out how to add legislative work into our campaigns. And so, took, uh, several years to learn how to do that and have added it and has been successful.

So we have introduced bills on fur and circus and octopus obviously. Several bills have passed. And it's really great to make these changes because we're able to now, like, we have a mentorship, so now we can channel everything that we learned. Brenna and I actually, we, we've worked together, we can channel everything that we learned in those four years into all our mentees and has been able to spread our reach extremely far. And, for the octopus campaign when, you know, when we found out that there was a plan for an octopus factory farm, we just were like, what can we do from Washington State to make an impact on that? You know, we have a lot of aquaculture in Washington state.

So we pitched a octopus farming prohibition to a couple sponsors that we partnered with and they picked it up and they loved the idea. And, you know, in Washington we had had a net pen disaster where almost 300,000 Atlantic salmon were released in Pacific waters. So they had had a fresh incident of carnivorous animals escaping.

So they were really quick to act on that.

[00:03:18] Mariann Sullivan: I can't wait to hear, like really get into the details on it. 'cause it's just a very, a very exciting development and I can't believe that you've been in existence just since 2017. 'cause you really, you really have accomplished a lot. Allie, you have been on the podcast before and we are familiar with your work here because it's in New York City and, both Jasmin and I used to live there and we're very, very excited about the work that VFAR has been doing.

It doesn't strike me that octopuses would be like a big issue in New York City. But you also do work in New York State, I believe. So tell us what, what brought you to this issue?

[00:03:50] Allie Taylor: Yeah, so we, you know, we do cover state legislation as well as city legislation, but I think that when folks think of New York, they think of New York City, and they don't think about this massive state that we have beyond the five boroughs. But the reality is that there is a fishing industry here, particularly, you know, around Long Island, the Hudson River, and there's actually a massive farming economy in New York state right? Outside of New York City, outside of Long Island. New York is a dairy state.

[00:04:21] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, since I live in Rochester now, I am fully aware New York is a dairy state and it is growing bigger and bigger and bigger.

[00:04:30] Allie Taylor: It really is. And it's unfortunate that, you know, governor Hochul is doing everything in her power to expand farming rather than the way other places are going where they're trying to, you know, find new and sustainable ways of producing food that don't involve cruelty to animals and humans.

But that's a whole other topic. But yeah, outside of New York City, I think a lot of folks didn't realize that this is very much a farming state, whether it's chicken, pigs, cows especially. And so it only made sense for us to start to get involved and make sure that this doesn't come to New York State. I think the strongest argument for doing so is that once a farming practice becomes a thing, once it becomes something that makes money, that has equity, you know, private equity behind it, that has employees, that has owners that has a whole economy around it, it is nearly impossible to make a change in that.

Right? Folks have been trying to make improvements to the lives of animals exploited for food in New York for decades, and there really hasn't been much that's accomplished at all. And it's not surprising because we are the little guys fighting against the powers that be, that have an entire economy around the exploitation of cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals. So we see this as if we can prevent a farming practice from becoming a thing, period, we can preemptively save thousands if not millions of animals from being harmed in the first place. And that's what we've been talking to a lot of elected officials about is we say, look. if you are representing a dairy district or a district where there's chicken farming, there is no question that we know that those animals are being harmed.

We know that the people involved in the industry in raising those animals and slaughtering those animals, they are not being treated properly. And we all know that we could do a better job, but that it is nearly impossible because of money as the bottom line. So why don't we proactively say, Hey. Enough is enough.

We don't need to add octopus farming to our economy here in New York and let's keep this away while we can, right? Because the second it becomes a thing, it is impossible to...

[00:06:38] Mariann Sullivan: Oh, totally, totally.

[00:06:39] Allie Taylor: Look at the foie gras ban, like we've been battling that now for years. It's gonna be in the court even longer than we all ever expected. And you're talking about just one product that's a specialty, produced at only two farms in the entire state, and yet this whole thing has made its way to the Supreme Court, right? So I think that's a perfect example is if people had realized years and years ago how horrible foie gras was, probably wouldn't have ever become a thing, but now that it has money behind it, it is a huge thing.

[00:07:10] Mariann Sullivan: And so, Brenna, just to get everybody's introduction, can you just tell us what we've had people on before from the Humane League's Animal Policy Alliance, and so some of our listeners may have an idea of, of what it is and what kind of role you play in other people's legislative campaigns, that are being run on a more local basis.

But can you kind of go over that for people and specifically talk about why you were particularly interested in the octopus campaign?

[00:07:36] Brenna Anderst: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Brenna Anderson. I'm the Senior policy advisor at the Humane League, and I am a member of the public policy team at the Humane League, which is a team of individuals that runs the Animal Policy Alliance. The Animal Policy Alliance was founded in 2022, to be a collective group of organizations from across the US that have the shared mission to end animal cruelty. And these organizations specifically have farmed animals within their scope of legislative priorities. And what we were really finding before 2022, when the APA was formed was that there's so many groups across the United States doing amazing work for animals, passing really great policies for animals, but they didn't have a place to network and they didn't have a place to share their successes, have a sounding board with one another, share resources. And that's really what we're trying to achieve now with the Animal Policy Alliance. Since Since 2022, we've now grown to 27 member organizations representing 19 states and Washington DC, and we're continuing to grow. We are a place for organizations that are working at both the local and state level. Many of our groups are small, but some of them actually are working at the state and local level in multiple states or multiple jurisdictions across the US. So we really have a little bit of something for everybody. And I think that's what makes the Animal Policy Alliance so great and unique in that we have organizations that are brand new, maybe just getting started working on animal policy campaigns, but then we have other very seasoned advocates within the Alliance who have a number of successes in their repertoire and are able to provide strategic insights or assistance to some of our newer member groups. So we're really creating a partnership. We're facilitating relationship building amongst these organizations and a place where we can really all celebrate these monumental wins that we're beginning to see for animals.

You also mentioned how we got connected to octopus farming and banning octopus farming really is a, a new strategy and a new initiative that was really ignited by Animal Rights Initiative led by Amanda on the call with us. And what's really exciting about this issue, as Allie articulated earlier, is that we are preemptively banning this practice, which really is what highlighted the need for these types of campaigns within the Animal Policy Alliance. We have other members that have also worked with Animal Rights Initiative on banning octopus farming, notably Pasado's Safe haven, as well as Northwest Animal Rights Network, both located in Washington state. They were part of the coalition to ban octopus farming in Washington. Then we have Social Compassion and Legislation, which was part of the coalition to ban octopus farming in California.

And now we have other Animal Policy Alliance members who are working on banning octopus farming in their own states, including Allie, here with us today. So this is a really great example of how one idea, one kind of catalyst for change can create this ripple effect within our movement and inspire change in other places, other locations.

And so it's really exciting to see these types of campaigns growing and expanding because of this shared networking place within the Animal Policy Alliance.

[00:11:20] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I, you know, we've had a few people on from the Animal Policy Alliance over a period of time, and it seems like every time we do an interview it has gotten bigger and, and it's doing a wider variety of projects and legislative, focuses. And it's really very exciting to see that happening.

And I imagine, you know, for a lot of people out there toiling away in their particular jurisdiction, it's nice to have that network to, to kind of come to and, and just meet people working on the same stuff. Before we get into that whole process, let's just take a step back for a second and talk a little bit about octopuses. Amanda, can you just tell us a little bit about octopuses? I mean, obviously that's a big topic, but we all, you know, know what they look like, but we don't know that much about them and what do we really know about them? What do we not know about them? 'cause they're pretty mysterious creatures.

And just explain why the farming them, I mean, it's probably pretty obvious to our listeners, but explain why farming them is, is so abusive.

[00:12:22] Amanda Fox: Yes, I can talk about those things. And it's funny because when we started the campaign in Washington, we knew so little. And the more like, the more campaigns I do, the more states I researched, like issue is actually so much larger and important now. And so I'll get into why it's more important than we even believed it back then.

But octopuses, yes, there's so much that we don't know. And what's interesting is that they actually have more gene expressions than us, in multiple different ways. They have about a 150% more gene expressions than we do. So we can't even begin to comprehend their cognitive abilities.

We can say that they're definitely cognitively advanced, especially if they have so many more gene expressions that are teaching them how to taste with their tentacles, literally. So, you know, when I first started studying them, I knew kind of that they had this preference for crustaceans, and that's part of why it was so terrible to farm them.

But now I know that they'll only eat live prey and that they literally use their tentacles to look through corals for crustaceans. Like they know when they found one and they have their special venom, every single octopus is venomous, to inject the crabs in their eyes with this paralyzing venom that softens their shell and they eat them. And it's totally crazy. Cause I, at first I was like, how does an octopus even eat a crab? Like that doesn't make any sense. But they all are venomous and some octopuses are so venomous that they can even kill human beings. I think that that's one aspect why farming them is just so insane to think that we're going to be rapidly genetically advancing a species that is venomous and can kill people. Right. And like that's just one thing. because of the propensity to escape, you know, I actually found in so many aquariums all over the world, across the whole globe, that octopuses are always escaping. They're always wreaking havoc. They're throwing rocks at the water. They're spraying lamps with water flooding the facility. I've

[00:14:28] Mariann Sullivan: Wow.

[00:14:29] Amanda Fox: accounts. Yeah, I've read multiple accounts. One octopus in Santa Monica opened the flood chamber, essentially flooded the aquarium put all these other animals at risk. You know what's really important is these are facilities with one or two octopuses. These potential farming experiments have 50,000 to 200,000 octopuses at the same time.

And so this study actually done by the Seattle Aquarium, studied every single species that they could find and found every single one tried to escape. But o vulgaris, the one that's being researched to be produced for food, tried to escape the most. So. know, what we know about hatcheries is in one generation they can have 700 genetic advancements from the control group. So if we're doing this to octopus, we're obviously gonna get more and more equipped octopus, at escaping. More venomous, whatever they need to do to be able to survive the hatchery system. You know, these are aggressive animals that are solitary creatures. They usually live alone. There's some accounts of them actually building cities and living together, but they do evict each other, which is so interesting. But the experimental farms keep them in tanks up to 200 at a time. And what I've found is when they're swimming, their heart actually stops beating. So they can only swim for so long with, so they can't escape all these 200 other carnivorous cannibalistic animals that are willing to strangle you. Like that's their behavior, you know? Um, so it's so horrific to think we're even considering 200 of these apex predators in one single tank and just exposing them to constant aggression and horrific intensive confinement.

[00:16:14] Mariann Sullivan: You know, I've heard the random story here about an octopus escaping and they always act as if this is this extraordinary thing that this one, octopus did. Apparently they do it all the time. Apparently this is who they are.

[00:16:27] Amanda Fox: This is who they are. Absolutely. There's stories where aquariums have released them 'cause they gave up. They were like, they, they tried to escape so many times. We just wanted to let 'em go. There's uh, stories of the octopuses getting out and going into lobster tanks, eating up all the lobsters and coming back. And then, um,

yeah. And this is, well this is really alarming because crab and lobster traps are cages at the bottom of the ocean floor. Right. So there's like, if a fishery wants to catch like 3 million pounds or more of crabs, they got a lot of traps on the ocean floor. And the octopuses can get so small, as small as their beak so they can just get in.

And so they're actually seeing this in the UK right now where this mystery influx of octopus have overloaded the United Kingdom and have gone into all the crab pots and are basically treating it as a buffet. So the fishers are able to catch more octopus, but there's no shellfish available. And so they are predicting that these octopuses came from the Mediterranean.

But I think it just so happens that there's two research facilities in Spain, just south of the UK, with no escape reporting requirements. And so the octopuses in the UK are being reported as super sized. You know, they usually only get to four feet. That's really big for an octopus vulgaris. They have a really low mortality rate and the wild it's like 0.001% or some something crazy. And so they're finding this massive influx of huge octopuses. And I'm wondering... obviously what we see with hens and cows is they breed them on purpose to get bigger. They breed them on purpose to go grow faster. So are we seeing mutant octopus

[00:18:05] Mariann Sullivan: Oh wow. Yeah.

[00:18:06] Amanda Fox: from possible escaped farms in Spain? I mean, and there's more farms. We thought there was only that one farm. There's actually farms, experimental farms in New Zealand, Greece, Italy, Australia, Japan, China. So it's really so important that we do move to all these coastal states, especially what Allie was talking about, 'cause it's a right to farm state. So once they put one up, there's no going back in New York.

[00:18:31] Mariann Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:31] Amanda Fox: So it's so insanely important that that state gets tackled.

[00:18:34] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. And Allie, you had mentioned the enormous bonus of trying to ban something before it's entrenched and before money has been put into it. But another thing that strikes me about octopuses, is that though people do eat them, not that many people eat them. I'm sure all of these people are hoping to change that, get more and more people eating them. But at the moment, do you think in some ways it might be easier, from your legislative experience, to get people to care about animals and to get legislators to do something about animals when they don't eat them?

[00:19:04] Allie Taylor: I don't know. I think it, I think most legislators have a pretty high level of cognitive dissonance. You know, like take the foie gras ban in New York City, for example. I remember after that passed and, and became law, two weeks later was Thanksgiving and we had dozens of city council members handing out free frozen turkeys to folks in their districts and us being like, did they miss the memo?

Like what?

[00:19:36] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

[00:19:36] Allie Taylor: We just covered this. Like these are sent,

feeling animals.

[00:19:40] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. I think sometimes people's brains turn off as soon as the animal enters their mouth and

[00:19:45] Allie Taylor: Yeah,

[00:19:46] Mariann Sullivan: if they eat them, they just can't imagine that they're real or they matter.

[00:19:52] Allie Taylor: And we, we see that a lot, right? Like you'll see legislators who are like gung-ho and championing, you know, puppy mill legislation or

[00:20:00] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

[00:20:01] Allie Taylor: around, you know, captivity of animals or any number of issues. But then they, they go home and they eat a cheeseburger and you know, I think at the end of the day, as long as they vote the right way and advocate for the laws, that's all we can ask of them. I don't know if whether or not a legislator eats animals has much of an effect on how they vote on it. I think there's just, there's not enough elected officials, who are vegetarian or vegan to have a majority, and so we have to work with what we got.

[00:20:29] Mariann Sullivan: And so Amanda, according to your website, this is now a multi-state and even international effort to ban octopus farming, I guess primarily focused in places where it hasn't happened yet. But let's focus on Washington, which is, you know, where you started and where your experience is, because I'd really like to get into the details.

Did you know before you started working on this, what legislators you knew who, who might be likely to carry this bill for you?

[00:20:55] Amanda Fox: We had some ideas. Yeah, we pitched it to somebody that had worked on our fur farming ban as well. So we kind of thought that she might consider doing a similar bill with octopus farming. And so she did agree, but then we actually ended up doing another bill with her and we picked a coastal district representative to do the octopus farming bill.

But es essentially, I would credit her for finding that person that ended up to be the perfect person. So yeah, we did kind of already know who was gonna do it.

[00:21:23] Mariann Sullivan: And what, what exactly did the bill provide?

[00:21:26] Amanda Fox: The bill prohibits octopus aquaculture essentially. So, you know, because it's was a system that doesn't exist and there wasn't any regulation on it at all. And we didn't really know how the legislature was going to respond

[00:21:39] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

[00:21:39] Amanda Fox: to the issue because, you know, octopus is aren't really cuddly animals.

So we didn't know if they were gonna respond at all. And, they they did. So, they were able to add some language into Washington's already existing restrictions on aquaculture that just bans farming. And, you know, we did want to include a sales aspect, but we wanted to see what the legislature, how they would react first to this new thing, since it's not, like you said in the United States, it's not really in our consciousness,

[00:22:07] Mariann Sullivan: It's not something a lot of people eat. So, Brenna, were you, were you involved at all at this time and did you have any input on the, on writing the bill and developing the thought process behind it?

[00:22:18] Brenna Anderst: Yeah, well, I'm in a very unique position in that right now I currently work at The Humane League and help out with the Animal Policy Alliance. But at the time that this bill was going through the legislature in Washington State, I was actually part of one of our APA member organizations. I was leading their education and advocacy initiatives, and this organization was Pasado's Safe Haven.

So at that time, we worked very closely with Animal Rights Initiative and Amanda, not necessarily in drafting the bill, but in helping get it through the legislative process, working with committee members, working with legislators, communicating with the public in Washington to get them on board. Also communicating with other animal protection organizations from across the US who wanted to be involved as well. So we did have a hand, but of course all of us played different roles throughout the process of that bill. That's part of why we really love the membership of the Animal Policy Alliance is we all have different skills. We all have different levels of expertise. And that collective grouping of all those talents, all those skills are what really help us get these wins for animals. And the octopus farming bill in Washington is a great example of that. Another one of our APA members who was involved was Northwest Animal Rights Network, also known as NARN. They also helped with some of the grassroots, action alerts for locals in Washington who wanted to share their voice and connect with legislators on that issue.

[00:23:53] Mariann Sullivan: So was there opposition or were you in there early enough so that the opposition was not really organized?

[00:23:59] Amanda Fox: At that time there really was no opposition. Honestly, we didn't want to be very public about it because Nueva Pescanova and Cook Aquaculture already operate in the United States. So we didn't want Cook Aquaculture's been invest, trying to invest money in Nueva Pescanova to get the octopus farm.

And so we didn't want anyone to know. So really the only opposition at that point was a Senator that I personally feel like he knew we had the fur farming bill, so he said, we don't like this bill. There's octopus for sale. He just kind of tried to make it seem like the bill wasn't necessary. That was the opposition.

But like I said, now I know it's even more necessary than how I thought about it then.

[00:24:40] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, absolutely. Because, I mean, from your website, and I admit I don't have, you know, a great timeline on when everything happened, but it seems like you've put together either for in passing that bill or in, in working on the issue, uh, more generally. Like a, a real scientific brief. I noticed that Jennifer Jacquet's, name was mentioned and she's of course a great, um, marine scientist And you've really put together a lot of information to bring to legislators on this issue.

And I would imagine that's really important since most people, I would think would be like, huh? Like just something they know nothing about and have no idea why you would be opposed to it. Is that right?

[00:25:20] Amanda Fox: Yeah. Well thanks for looking and thanks for noticing because yes, we did work extremely hard to prove that this is an ecosystem like danger. So I know you saw our website, we have a couple of our slides that we give to the legislators on the website, but I actually just finished a literally 19 page report on all, everything that you can think of, reasons why not to farm octopus.

And so I'm working on getting that published so we can share the research with legislators as fast as possible because, something that we haven't mentioned yet that I did find is that they're not, you can't immunize them. That's something that they do to all farmed animals and octopus have no immunological memory, I found.

So there's no vaccinating them. So all the parasites that they frequently do get will be quickly spread between them. And then also in the water. It's a water-based aquaculture. So, yeah, we're trying really hard because we don't wanna be discredited. We don't want them to just say, these are emotionally based policies.

Like, of course we don't think it's okay to harm octopus. They're obviously extremely sentient, but that's not where it ends. You know, like you can't say this is just an ethical argument and then say there's some slippery slope and we're gonna come after pig farming or chicken farming, et cetera.

Like, no, these octopuses are unique, so unique compared to any other animal. They're the only aquacultured species that can walk on land and would actively try to escape. So that first of all, that and the parasite, everything, everything leads to you should not absolutely do this at all. And the fact that they have to eat the crustaceans and the farm's plans that were released, Nueva Pescanova's plans. They intend to farm a million pounds of octopus per year. And if they have a three to five ratio of feed, that's three to five millions of crabs and fish minimum, not even counting the ones that die before they reach slaughter age. That's over 5 million pounds of waste that I just said is gonna have parasites. There's no way around it and it fuels these harmful algae blooms. There's already so many studies on mink farming and foie gras farming that these resource intensive diets, salmon farming, their crustacean based and seafood based diets pollute the water so much more than any other type of farm.

This isn't corn. This isn't soybeans. These are other animals that have toxins within their bodies. So when the octopus eat them and then create waste, that'll also have more PLPs, mercury, et cetera, go into the water. So if every single state in the United States has an average of 80% decline of populations for crustaceans, every single state, Maine, Florida, Alaska, Hawaii, how are we gonna support all that waste going in and toxicating, all of the crabs?

You know, like it's just not feasible. It's so, so wrong to just say that this is an emotionally based slippery slope kind of bill when it impacts the ecosystem so vastly. Even whale entanglements, honestly. Like I had no gr grasp of what a crab fishery looked like before this. I had no idea. But they have, like I said, they're trying to trap millions of crabs, so millions of traps, and they have ropes. So they have ropes so they can find them. The ropes go from the trap on the bottom of the floor to a buoy up at the top of the ocean. And when all these endangered whales, manatees, et cetera, swim through, they get entangled and most often die. And every single coastal state I researched has so many examples of whale entanglements that one person had pitched to me.

What if we don't increase the crabbing here? What if they increase the crabbing in another state to support the octopus farm? Then would it be okay?

[00:29:06] Mariann Sullivan: The crabs that they eat are all wild caught?

Like, I just don't know how any of this works. So they wild catch the crabs for them to eat and decimate the crab populations in order to bring the crabs. And where are the octopuses held? Are they in the sea in pens or are they on land? Cause I know aquaculture for other species works both ways.

Sometimes it's on land in big cement pools, and sometimes it's actually in the ocean.

[00:29:29] Amanda Fox: I saw a smaller farm that was actually in the ocean, but most of what we're talking about are land-based farms,

[00:29:34] Mariann Sullivan: Okay.

[00:29:35] Amanda Fox: We would wanna prevent both. Absolutely.

[00:29:36] Mariann Sullivan: of course. Of course.

[00:29:38] Amanda Fox: They're land-based farms, and in most studies I read, they're still feeding them crustacean, so they haven't come up with a system that wouldn't require wild caught crustaceans. And if you're talking about 5 million pounds, that's more than some fisheries altogether. Like the Massachusetts Jonah crab fishery is 5 million pounds a year.

They would use the entire fishery to feed one octopus farm and just no more crabs for people? Obviously, I don't want anyone eating crabs...

[00:30:05] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. No, I know we always get stuck in these, uh,

[00:30:07] Amanda Fox: yeah.

[00:30:08] Mariann Sullivan: in these conundrums of like, we don't want any of it, but we have to draw a line somewhere. So Brenna, I, I was just gonna follow up with you. Like, obviously all this information has been gathered, but it wasn't really that needed in Washington.

Is it, much more needed now that it's, this is moving on to other states? Are the questions getting tougher? Is the opposition getting more organized?

[00:30:30] Brenna Anderst: Yeah, great question. And you're, you're very correct. There wasn't much opposition or really any opposition that was encountered in Washington State because the issue was so new and there was also no opposition that was really seen in the California ban as well. But, and Allie can speak to this a little more, but we have seen a bit of opposition in New York from the industry basically trying to, discredit claims around the impacts on environment and the impacts on ecosystems. One of the things that we're really trying to do for the Animal Policy Alliance is create resources that are lessons learned from these real life campaigns, from these boots on the ground campaigns. So that as other organizations or other states want to pursue their own bans, they have these real life case studies to look back on to know

[00:31:21] Mariann Sullivan: All right.

[00:31:22] Brenna Anderst: what were the counter arguments?

What were the pro arguments? What came up in the committee hearing that was unexpected? And so we're really trying to equip our APA members to be ready for any sort of opposition and know the right talking points to counter that opposition and really work with legislators in ways that they understand and ways that appeal to them and ways that appeal to their constituents. And so that's something that we're really working hard to do for not just octopus farming bans, but for a variety of farmed animal initiatives that our APA members are working

[00:32:00] Mariann Sullivan: Right,

[00:32:00] Brenna Anderst: on.

[00:32:00] Mariann Sullivan: Right. No, that, that seems like incredibly valuable. So tell us, Allie, is it incredibly valuable? Like, what kind of opposition are you facing in New York that perhaps the industry is getting a little bit more savvy that they have to start fighting these bans? And are you able to make use of these kinds of resources?

[00:32:16] Allie Taylor: Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, I think once things hit New York, that's when industries start to pay attention, right? Like, California does everything first. California is always ahead of the game. They, you know, especially West Hollywood, first they do it, and then other cities in California do it, and then the

[00:32:32] Mariann Sullivan: All animal legislation starts in

[00:32:34] Allie Taylor: Everything's born in West Hollywood. Exactly. And, you know, so I don't think that that wakes the opposition up as much as it does other places. But once New York does it, you know, and you could argue that like New York City center of, I mean, I think it's the center of the world, but I live in New York. Um, you know,

[00:32:53] Mariann Sullivan: I don't think of it as the center of, I mean, I think of the center of the world too, but I don't think of it as, as the center of octopus farming. I mean, I, that seems surprising because New York, New York doesn't even have a huge coastline.

[00:33:04] Allie Taylor: Right. But I, I feel like New York has that like grandure to it, that when the industry says, oh, New York state's doing this, now we gotta pay attention. Like now we are seeing the giant waking up. Right? Like one of our colleagues at another aquatic animal organization just sent us an article today about how there was a number of folks from the aquaculture industry who like signed a letter saying they oppose, bans on octopus farming. I think there's also fear about how this may affect restaurants, which it shouldn't affect restaurants in any way, right? Restaurants currently get their octopus from wild caught sources, most of which are not in the United States. But the fear is that, if they put the responsibility of accidentally serving factory farmed octopus on restaurants, that that would unfairly target restaurants.

But that's not our target here, right? Our target here is making sure this industry doesn't come here in the first place. So, I have seen some opposition that's been popping up. I think, you know, that's why a lot of times we make the case for doing these campaigns, sort of like quiet and stealthy, so we don't awaken the opposition. But having the APA has been invaluable and having Amanda and her organization has been totally invaluable, because this is not an issue that I was very familiar with. Right? We knew we wanted to work on aquaculture and work on protecting aquatic animals, but we didn't even know where to start.

And so having, you know, Amanda and having the APA has been indispensable in helping us. When we need to counter these type of arguments or know what the facts are, we have that right at our disposal, so I can't stress enough how helpful it's been to work and collaborate with other states who have already done this and won at this.

[00:34:53] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I can imagine. I, you know, like becoming an animal advocate and especially with the kind of work you guys do, like, you have to know so much like, about this unbelievable variety of different human endeavors and they all like, talk about how the fact, well, you know, you don't know anything. You're not in the industry.

Well of course we're not in the industry. I mean, like, why would we be in the industry? But they try to use it as a way to act like we're very naive about things. So, Brenna, can you just talk about like, experiences in between Washington, which was first and New York, which is next. What has happened and how have you seen the opposition growing?

[00:35:32] Brenna Anderst: Well, in terms of what's happened in between the initial passage of the Washington ban and now the work being done in New York is, of course, we did see California pass a ban of octopus farming as well as the sale of farmed octopus. So that was a really exciting development. And now as Animal Rights Initiative and other organizations are working on introducing new legislation in other states, they're including that sales ban element, which is really, really important. Another development that we saw was in the 2024 Congress. We saw a federal bill introduced called the Octopus Act. And of course that expired with the last Congress, but we are looking at seeing a new version of the Octopus Act introduced federally probably in the next few weeks or so. The organization really leading the effort behind that is Animal Legal Defense Fund and The Humane League is working with them to support that effort.

So we are excited to see something federally reintroduced.

[00:36:39] Mariann Sullivan: I mean, is there actually any hope of anything happening federally and is that one of the reasons that the work of the Animal Policy Alliance is so important? 'cause you've gone local?

[00:36:49] Brenna Anderst: Oh my gosh. I'm so glad that you asked that question and, and that you brought that up. I mean, it's really hard to say like where things might go federally and it's

[00:37:00] Mariann Sullivan: that's for sure.

[00:37:00] Brenna Anderst: definitely.

[00:37:01] Mariann Sullivan: And in many different ways.

[00:37:03] Brenna Anderst: Definitely easy to have kind of a bleak outlook on any sort of positive farmed animal reform happening at the federal level, but that's why really empowering advocates and organizations at the state and local level is so important because.

[00:37:23] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

[00:37:23] Brenna Anderst: These wins are happening and they are possible, and we're seeing them happen every single year as the Animal Policy Alliance continues to grow and these organizations get more resources, they get more strategic. We're seeing these successes happen in real time and even though it might not be like the big wide sweeping approach that a federal ban might have, it still is happening and it still is growing and more and more people outside of the animal protection movement are becoming aware of it too. And so that's really exciting to see this momentum happening and, and yeah, we gotta be a little bit more patient, but it's there and it's happening.

[00:38:09] Mariann Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:09] Brenna Anderst: A lot of our APA members are doing some really great work to ensure that these bills are getting passed and we are getting these small incremental wins for animals.

[00:38:20] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. And what other states? I mean, it's not just California and Washington.

[00:38:25] Amanda Fox: Yeah, so there's a lot of states. Honestly, New York is our ninth state. Every, every coastal state is the goal, right? Like, so luckily I met Allie, right? And we're collaborating on New York because I just wanna say again, it doesn't have a large coastline, but they have really important horseshoe crabs that are already under threat.

They already have had the American lobster fishery collapse, where they used to have like a million pounds. They can barely catch a hundred thousand pounds now. So it's so important. And, we have right now Washington, California. Oregon, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and North Carolina.

And New York.

[00:39:02] Mariann Sullivan: Wow, that's a lot. Is California the only one that has a sales ban or do others as well?

[00:39:07] Amanda Fox: So yes, we are able to partner with LDF and get the sales ban added in California and other states. Some of them are different, so some of the legislators felt differently about the aspect. Some of them, like in Hawaii and Oregon, for example, wanted to go the same route as Washington because they, you know, don't want extra opposition even though commercial sales of octopus isn't happening right now.

And if there was, it would flood the market and drastically reduce costs. So it would have an economic impact, but for example, in Massachusetts, the bill does cover sales, and in Connecticut it does cover sales. Connecticut actually, it would cover exhibitions too, so you wouldn't be able to display octopus either.

[00:39:46] Mariann Sullivan: Just let me clarify 'cause I think I, maybe I got confused. Are these states in which there are bills pending or states in which there are bills passed?

[00:39:54] Amanda Fox: So Washington and California are passed and all the others have been

[00:39:58] Mariann Sullivan: or pen. Okay.

[00:39:59] Amanda Fox: um, New Jersey and Massachusetts, we actually just had our hearings this month, so just in the last two weeks we had two hearings back to back. It was really incredible.

[00:40:08] Mariann Sullivan: Was the response they, they didn't act like you were all crazy?

[00:40:12] Amanda Fox: No, the response was great, honestly.

[00:40:13] Mariann Sullivan: That's great.

[00:40:15] Amanda Fox: There was no opposition that came. The opposition that has surfaced now is the National Aquaculture Association. And so they, they've been sending a letter to the chair. They sent one in New York, they sent one in Massachusetts.

And essentially at the same time that they're saying that this isn't an issue and we don't need to waste time with legislation, they're also saying, don't prohibit this potentially extremely lucrative business. And so you're like, okay, you're acknowledging that this is happening and also saying it's not at the same time. So it just doesn't make sense. So in Massachusetts only supporters came and mostly scientists weighed in. So we're able to get scientists from from all over the country, honestly all over the world, to send in testimony. And same thing in New Jersey. New Jersey, there was someone there that said the same thing, like, don't limit this potential business. But I think if they really understood octopuses and how they can harm crabs and shrimp and mollusks and other shellfish, they would really understand why we need to get ahead of this. And so looking at the science is really important.

[00:41:14] Mariann Sullivan: Clearly a lot of the arguments that you have to make in order to make an impression and, and things that you've brought to the fore today are, well, you know, will destroy the crab industry. And it's better for animals to eat soybeans than other animal. You know, things that, really are not the kind of things that we would argue from our hearts, but that as a practical matter, we have to argue, like, do you ever have pushback within your organizations or your movements in having to make those kinds of arguments?

[00:41:43] Amanda Fox: Within my own heart, of course, I was like, what am I saying here? And I, I had to really think about why it is an ethical issue that octopuses would eat all the crabs and the crabbers would be harmed. And

[00:41:56] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

[00:41:57] Amanda Fox: You know, obviously I don't approve of any kind of fishing or farming, that's just complete enslavement to me.

And it becomes a major problem when you think that those crabbers, the lobster people, they might go out of business soon. And if we run out of those wild caught protein sources, they're gonna have more farms. And so not only would octopuses eat all these other wild animals. So that's one ethical concern that's obvious.

Then also, we, we run the risk of more farming being created to replace these missing.

[00:42:30] Mariann Sullivan: it would be nice if everybody would just go vegan though, but how else would you, would you make an argument to legislators who, you know, don't agree with us about big issues to say, well this one we have to, we have to pick this one. I mean, that's one of the challenges of legislative work in general, I think. Allie, is that something that you have run into in your career? Like fighting for things that are just chipping away and actually having to make compromises that,

that we don't enjoy making because it's legislative work.

[00:42:58] Allie Taylor: Yeah, constantly. Every bill is a negotiation. And there was a bill last week that, you know, around glue traps, so we had to completely water down, from where we started from. But I think some progress is better than no progress.

[00:43:10] Mariann Sullivan: So Brenna, what is the Animal Policy Alliance's position on this? Obviously the issues that you work on tend to be, I mean, they involve millions of animals. They're not small, but it's really hard to, to chip away at animal agriculture per se. So how does a campaign like octopus farming fit into like a more overall goal regarding animal agriculture?

Either within the particular, uh, positions or in your own head?

[00:43:39] Brenna Anderst: Yeah, great question. I, I mean, I would say that within the Animal Policy Alliance and all of our members of the Alliance, we all have the collective goal of total liberation for animals, and we do have maybe different ideas or different strategies on how to reach that end goal. We have some members of the Animal Policy Alliance that are more of an abolitionist approach, then we have other members that are more of a incremental welfare approach and all of these have their space and all of them have their value. I would say overall for The Humane League as well, for the Animal Policy Alliance, we are looking at it as more of an incremental stage approach. Definitely allowing space for a variety of different tactics, whether that is preemptive legislation like banning octopus farming, whether that is targeting some of like the most horrendous forms of cruelty, like extreme confinement and battery cages, or whether that is looking at getting more of those low hanging fruit wins, like banning the sale of pets in pet stores. There are so many different ways that we are all collectively working towards the same mission and the same end goal, and we need them all and they all need to be happening simultaneously, depending on the location. What we see a lot with our APA members is what's possible in California is obviously not necessarily possible in Missouri. In Missouri, we have a really great Animal Policy Alliance member that is just generally on the defense, trying to prevent factory farming practices from getting more powerful and getting more extreme roots in their communities. So they're not really looking at trying to ban a practice before it gets started, like octopus farming.

They're trying to make sure that like things don't get any worse. But then we have other organizations like that are located in places like California that can look at more of those like bigger wins that have like more of a, a wide reach in their communities, like banning octopus farming or banning other forms of extreme confinement.

So the makeup of our alliance of our membership really looks different depending on the location of each member. But then we're still all coming together and, and sharing those victories and learning from each other and supporting each other where we can.

[00:46:09] Mariann Sullivan: What about you guys? Have you found that working with the Animal Policy Alliance has, has, you know, this isn't even like a, did it make you more effective, but does it just. I would imagine it feels good to be part of some... often we're so alone in our animal advocacy and in what we believe.

Is it psychologically helpful to have this kind of national alliance?

[00:46:31] Amanda Fox: I think that being part of the APA really gives me an opportunity to connect with individual people around the country I would otherwise never be able to meet. And then just being with them, even if we're not collaborating on something, I feel like my vibrations are raised because we're all like, just. We're just all there and we all really want the same thing and we're just trying so hard. And you can just feel that with other members. Like I can definitely feel that with Allie. Like I really look up to her, obviously. And what's really cool is it also does open pathways because I do know, for example, that the main group of the APA is interested in a bill that I'm interested in.

So I can go to them and be like, Hey, like how about 2026? Like, do you wanna do this? And, um, it does create pathways where I might not have like a resident... I don't know of personally any residents in Maine, so we wouldn't be able to find constituent support without that other group.

[00:47:25] Mariann Sullivan: You know, it must just be very helpful to have this crew, I, I, I sound like I'm, I'm your promoter or something, but I, I really do it. It just seems like such a relief to have a national organization like to, to deal with those questions, the ones I was just asking.

And, some people like think that if you're working on legislative and you're working on compromises, that you don't really believe in the, in the big issues. And just to realize that loads and loads of people are working in different ways towards the same goal. And sharing that goal is so powerful.

Anyway, I'm, I'm blathering on. I don't really need to, I was just gonna ask you, Brenna for your advice on if people listening wanna get involved, but before I do that, is there anything I should have asked about this effort that I haven't, that any of you would like to convey to our listeners, some of whom might wanna get involved?

[00:48:09] Amanda Fox: I would say if, if someone wants to get involved, let's hook up. Uh, if you are in a state that we didn't mention already, that means it's still an ongoing process and we can make it happen. So let's do it.

[00:48:20] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. And Brenna, can you just offer a little bit more information on how people, whether it's this issue or something else, people who wanna get involved with a local legislative group that already exists, or if there isn't one, even start one. Can you just offer some suggestions?

[00:48:34] Brenna Anderst: Absolutely. So if you are involved with either a local or state level organization that is working on policies that protect farmed animals or is interested in working on those policies, definitely go to animalpolicyalliance.org. We have an application there where you can apply to join the Animal Policy Alliance. There's also a bit of information there on what membership might look like, what those expectations are, information about monthly meetings and things like that. But also if you are an advocate that is maybe like on the forefront of creating a group and you're looking at eventually even becoming an incorporated nonprofit organization, you could be a good fit for the Animal Policy Alliance.

Well, as long as you have that growth and learning mindset for your group, that could be potentially an organization. So definitely check out animalpolicyalliance.org. But you know, if you're just an advocate that is passionate about animal issues, I would definitely encourage you to go to our website to check out all of our APA member organizations.

You can click within our directory and go to all their websites where they may have action alerts pertaining to their specific issues that they're working on. And again, these are organizations all across the United States. You can also go to thehumaneleague.org and check out ways to take action through our organization as well.

We have our Fast Action Network, which is really great. quick click actions that you can take to help animals. So there's lots of different ways that people can get involved and definitely be on the lookout for the federal Octopus Act, which should be reintroduced very soon. There will be lots of ways to take action to support that, whether that is contacting your legislator or maybe even doing letters to the editor, things like that.

So lots of ways that anyone across the US can get involved with a federal effort.

[00:50:34] Mariann Sullivan: Great. And I'm, I, you know, who knows? Maybe Congress will be so embarrassed that they're not doing anything else, that they'll actually pass this law. You never know. You never know. Very exciting work that you're all doing. Thank you so much, and thank you for joining me today. It's really been great and for, um, sharing all of this information about how people can become active.

And thanks everybody out there for tuning in. Please remember to subscribe on your favorite pod catcher. Or on YouTube and to like this episode on YouTube that really, really helps us out. And of course, you can donate and if you wish, become a flock member at ourhenhouse.org/support and catch our next episode, which is a Rising Anxieties episode on Tuesday.

Thanks for tuning in.