The 2021 film "My Octopus Teacher" swept the world with its touching story of a South African man who befriends a wild octopus while free diving in a kelp forest. Millions of filmgoers were charmed and moved by the wild octopus' adventures and antics — yet that wild octopus was a lucky one. According to Dr. Barbara J. King, professor emerita of anthropology at the College of William & Mary and author of "How Animals Grieve" (and other books on animals), nearly two dozen blue-lined octopuses living off Australia's Stradbroke Island suffered a much grimmer fate.
She described "this more recent experiment in which 21 wild octopuses going about their daily lives were collected from their homes in coastal waters and in the laboratory killed so their brains could be studied," King told Salon by email. "These octopuses pay the ultimate price – they are killed— because researchers are curious to know about comparative brain anatomy vis-à-vis habitat."
