Catch Me Later
© 2021 Pam Ferris-Olson
As the economic value of octopus as a food resource increases, there are related increases in efforts to fish and farm them. Octopus are captured using a number of methods including dragging nets using trawlers. In areas like Alaska where octopus are not fished, octopus may still be taken incidentally along with desired catches. Therefore, the risk that octopus will become over-exploited is real. In addition to the potential for negative impacts due to fishing, other threats to octopus include things such as noise and plastic pollution and changes in ocean conditions due to global warming.