When Chris Chesterfield goes to take out his pots, he usually expects cuttlefish or crabs. But lately the Cornish fisherman has been ambushed – and outnumbered.
“You only have one or two arms pulling them up,” he says, “and they have eight pulling you down.”
Unprecedented numbers of octopuses have been reported in the waters off Cornwall in recent weeks, sparking celebration and fears of a ‘population explosion’.
“I’ve been fishing for 40 years and I’ve never experienced this amount,” said Cameron Henry of Myler, who fished with his two brothers.
He first became aware of the increase in late May, when he began pulling out lobster and cuttlefish pots that were visibly empty after an eight-legged thief got his hands on the bait or prize first. “We didn’t have any clams – just scraps of clams.”
Within days, Henry was also catching the culprits, sometimes two or three to a pot: “You can imagine the fun of getting them out.”
The common octopus is a rare sight in British waters despite an unusual number of sightings off the coast of Cornwall in recent weeks. Photo: Shannon Moran
For Chesterfield, who works alone from Mevagisi in his 30-foot trawler, transloading the octopus presents an even greater logistical challenge.
The largest specimens stretch 1.2m (4ft) when suspended above the deck – if you can get them to stay still long enough, he says. “They just throw their tentacles at you and turn you inside out, literally. When they come out of the pot, they stick to the deck, they stick to your feet – it’s endless.”
In one day in early June, Chesterfield says he caught 260kg of octopus, which equates to about 150 of the creatures. In a typical year, he would expect to catch half a dozen.
“There were many days when you were pulling 100kg, there was no problem,” he says. “Sometimes there are five or six in one vessel.”
The Cornwall Wildlife Trust, which co-ordinates volunteer monitoring of local marine life, said the “huge” number of octopus sightings in the region, recorded not only by fishermen but also divers and divers, pointed to a rare population boom.
Despite its name, the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) is a rare sight in British waters, says Matt Slater, the trust’s marine conservation officer. “In a normal year we would only expect a few sightings and a few very excited divers – but now we get reports all the time which is great.”
Like many octopuses, the species only lives for a year or two, but produces up to 500,000 eggs, meaning that favorable conditions can cause large fluctuations in populations.
According to records kept by the Marine Biological Association, the last such event on the south coast of England was more than 70 years ago, in the summer of 1948. An octopus “plague” was previously described in 1899.
“It got to the point where fishermen were really worried about their livelihood,” says Slater. “They were found in rock pools and even laid eggs there, which is not normal.”
A fishing boat returns to the harbor in Mevagissey, Cornwall. Photo: Tom Nicholson/Reuters
Henry says there have been fears they will compete for catch this summer: “We’re seeing so many that it won’t take them long to catch an area.”
But both he and Chesterfield say sightings have decreased in recent days, suggesting that this particular consortium may be moving on – venturing either around Land’s End or out to sea.
However, it is possible that octopus booms will become more frequent in the future. Like jellyfish, octopuses have been found to adapt more quickly than other species to a changing marine ecosystem. Many species have already been found to have expanded their range with warming waters, while a study published last year found that octopuses can also withstand changes in acidity levels better than other species.
At least Slater is enthusiastic about the boom. A card-carrying member of the cephalopod squad, he worked at an aquarium and says individual animals recognize his face and prefer him to other staff.
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“The octopus plague, to me, is something that should be celebrated,” he says. “I was hoping that one day we might see one of those big population explosions, and I feel like this could be a great year.”
Slater is encouraging members of the public to report any octopus sightings on the Cornwall Wildlife Trust website – but Henry and Chesterfield, who are on the frontline, fear they will be run over.
Both say they “humanely dispatch” their captured octopus quickly with a knife between the eyes to the creature’s central brain. That’s so “we don’t have them crawling all over the boat like in previous years,” says Chesterfield. “It’s been long, hard days until we figure this out.”
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