Sink or Swim : Activists Want Octopus Freed From a 4-by-5-Foot Tank at Cabrillo Aquarium

The call “Free Octavia!” is rising in San Pedro as activists decry the living quarters of a newly captured octopus on display at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium.

The orange-red giant Pacific octopus with a tentacle span of 13 feet is residing in a 4-by-5-foot tank. That enrages some mollusk advocates who denounce the tank as being much too small.

So about two dozen of Octavia’s fans protested outside the city-owned aquarium Friday, calling on its operators to return the octopus to her native ocean depths, or at least to provide her with the comforts of a more spacious abode.

“Please Let Me Go Home!” read one protester’s sign, which showed a forlorn-looking octopus shedding tears.

A coldblooded mollusk with eight sucker-lined arms, the Octopus dofleini would seem an unlikely catalyst for such an outburst of public affection. It lacks the stately grace of the whale, the winsome personality of the dolphin. But those concerned insist that octopuses, too, deserve compassion and the freedom to stretch their many limbs.

They dismiss the 600-gallon tank as a mere sink.

“For an animal that size that’s used to living on the ocean floor, it’s inexcusable cruelty,” said Lisa Lange, international campaigns manager for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a national animal rights group that spearheaded the protest. Some even worry that Octavia will fall victim to a form of stress they describe as “Octopus Automutilation Syndrome” unless she is set free.

But the aquarium’s exhibits director, Mike Schaadt, argues that octopuses do not need abundant space.

“They like close quarters,” Schaadt said. “That’s where they feel most comfortable and most safe.”

The 58-pound Octavia is the first giant Pacific octopus to go on display at the Cabrillo aquarium.

Caught by a fisherman off San Clemente Island, the octopus was donated to the aquarium by a fish market where fishermen had taken it. She arrived at the aquarium Jan. 22.

Aquarium attendance tripled the first weekend she was on display, and T-shirts emblazoned with an orange octopus are on sale at the aquarium gift shop.

Contrary to the charges of animal rights activists, the Cabrillo aquarium did not take its new tenant lightly, Schaadt said. It consulted other West Coast aquariums about the kind of habitat Octavia would desire. Workers went scuba-diving off the Palos Verdes Peninsula to gather rocks for her tank and the water temperature was lowered from the typical 60 degrees to 56 degrees to resemble the cool ocean floors where she once lived.

Although the tank is too small for Octavia to fully extend her tentacles, Schaadt said, octopuses typically do not extend themselves unless they are searching for food or fleeing a predator.

“We’re really basing a lot of our confidence on the fact that she’s eating well, and she doesn’t show any signs of problems,” he said.

But activists disagree. Mary Beth Sweetland, a director at the animal rights group’s Rockville, Md., headquarters, said she saw Octavia last week when she was in California for an orangutans conference in Fullerton.

“I thought the tank was criminally inadequate,” Sweetland said. “She was smashed up close to the glass between the rock and the glass, and I could not see 12-foot arms being able to stretch out to their entirety.”

Four other aquariums that display giant Pacific octopuses report that their tanks are somewhat larger. However, officials at those aquariums say the mollusks do not require massive amounts of space, especially because they seek out crannies to in which to nestle.

“The happiest an octopus would be is under a rock,” said Allen Monroe, director of animal husbandry and life support at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Ore., where a 50-pound giant Pacific octopus lives in about 1,000 gallons of water.

Two octopuses each have a 1,640-gallon tank--shared with a few rock fishes and anemone--at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey. A smaller giant Pacific octopus lives in about 800 gallons of water at the Stephen Birch Aquarium-Museum at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, part of UC San Diego. And at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the giant Pacific octopus lives in a 2,000-gallon tank.

Exactly who christened the octopus Octavia is uncertain; Schaadt said Cabrillo aquarium officials typically do not christen their marine tenants. But a press release from the animal rights group refers to the octopus as Octavia, and the name was repeated on banners and picket signs hoisted at the Friday protest.

Christening the octopus may be a tactic to humanize it, Schaadt said. “I think that PETA is trying to take any opportunity to anthropomorphize the animal.”

Schaadt said that if Octavia shows any signs of stress or other problems, the Cabrillo aquarium will consider releasing her back into the ocean.

But protesters called for immediate action.

Octavia “is being held for entertainment, and it’s hurting (her),” said Amy Christiansen, 22, of Long Beach.

As picket signs bristled at the aquarium entrance Friday, schoolchildren inside swarmed around the octopus tank, peering eagerly at the entwined tentacles.

But Octavia appeared oblivious to the fuss she is fomenting. Sound asleep, she had turned into a mass that resembled nothing more than a large, orange-tinged sponge.