Don't hunt octopus in Seattle, even if it is legal

[MillCreek]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/magazine/the-octopus-that-almost-ate-seattle.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

Being a locavore has its limits, apparently.  Such as catching, killing and eating iconic sea creatures when it is perfectly legal to do so.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Sigh


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[RevDisk]

Any causer should be quizzed on their cause. If they can't answer five random but fairly basic questions correctly, they should be shot and left out in the wilds to be eaten by nature.

[BobR]

I remember when that happened.

It is much like the white moose that was recently harvested by a hunter in Nova Scotia, the ones who feel the moose is like a big white dog took a lot of offense at the guy, and the First Nations people went off the deep end (IMO). I personally thought it would have made a great trophy.

Annnnnnd...back on topic, sort of. When anchored in various ports in the Med I would lower a 3lb coffee can to the harbor floor and try to catch the octopi. Sometimes it worked, most of the time it didn't.

bob

[RevDisk]

Pro-Tip for executing causer hippies and yuppies, it is legal to hunt over a baited field.

Here's a good one: Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis), http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

[MillCreek]

I remember when that happened.

bob

So do I; it was amongst the top local media stories for days.  The guy got death threats.

[French G.]

Any causer should be quizzed on their cause. If they can't answer five random but fairly basic questions correctly, they should be shot and left out in the wilds to be eaten by nature.

Blue. No wait! Red! Arrghhh.......

[Tallpine]

So is it still legal for octopi to eat people ?   

[Lee]

If you chop them up and bake them in dough, it makes a great octopie.

[BlueStarLizzard]

I swear some people are just way off in La La Land.

[Lee]

Isn't there an old saying, something like, give a man a fish and he eats for a day, give a man an octopus and he eats for eight days. It's actually very environmentally friendly.

[Sergeant Bob]

It is much like the white moose that was recently harvested by a hunter in Nova Scotia, the ones who feel the moose is like a big white dog took a lot of offense at the guy, and the First Nations people went off the deep end (IMO). I personally thought it would have made a great trophy.

bob

Albino Whitetail (redundant innit?) deer are a genetic defect and were protected in Michigan until 2008. They are just "so pretty" the environuts couldn't bear for them to be killed. If they are so concerned about the welfare of Bambi, they should support the culling of genetically defective animals.

[Boomhauer]

Any causer should be quizzed on their cause. If they can't answer five random but fairly basic questions correctly, they should be shot and left out in the wilds to be eaten by nature.

We have people bitching and moaning about shark fishing here. Perfectly legal but I've had people come up to me crying (literally in tears) and whining about how the fishermen are being so mean to the sharks when they are fishing for them. These are the kind of idiots who want to "ban hunting...the hunters can get their meat at the grocery store like everybody else" while ignoring the fact that store or woods, the animal still dies. Or they want to outlaw eating meat completely. Idiots.

On Web forums, Seattleites tracked down the teenager’s name and address through the clues in the photos: the truck’s license plate, the high school named on Mayer’s sweatshirt and the inspection sticker affixed to his tank. “I hope this sick [expletive] gets tangled in a gill net next time he dives and thus removes a potential budding sociopath before it graduates from invertebrates to mammals,” read one typical comment, which received 52 “thumbs-ups.”

These kinds of people are why I own guns. Imagine if one of them got motivated enough to try to hunt Mayer down and do him harm?  These damn crackpots think nothing of doing such.

[Hawkmoon]

We have people bitching and moaning about shark fishing here. Perfectly legal but I've had people come up to me crying (literally in tears) and whining about how the fishermen are being so mean to the sharks when they are fishing for them. These are the kind of idiots who want to "ban hunting...the hunters can get their meat at the grocery store like everybody else" while ignoring the fact that store or woods, the animal still dies. Or they want to outlaw eating meat completely. Idiots.

These kinds of people are why I own guns. Imagine if one of them got motivated enough to try to hunt Mayer down and do him harm?  These damn crackpots think nothing of doing such.

People can be quite nuts.

Many years ago, a few miles from where my late mother was living there was a guy who had the same last name (but was no relation) who lived at the other end of Mom's road. Said guy was a druggie, a wife-beater, and a deadbeat ... so, naturally, he had an unlisted telephone number.

He also owned a horse, which he kept in borrowed or rented space in a small barn a couple of miles away. And, being a deadbeat, he apparently didn't give the horse much attention ... or food. Somebody became aware of the situation, animal welfare people were called in, the horse was taken away and the guy was arrested. And, of course, the newspaper printed several stories, citing his name and town of residence.

So the genius horse lovers looked up the last name in the telephone book (this was many years before the Algore invented the Internet), found Mom's name and address, and Mom was suddenly on the receiving end of numerous threats -- including death threats. My brother and I wrote to the local newspaper complaining that they had created this situation. They printed our letter in small print on an obscure page, the same day they printed another front page story about the guy and the starving horse, in which they did NOT make any attempt to inform readers that Mrs. ___ _____ was not the alleged perpetrator of the equine outrage.

It took a LONG time for the threats to taper off, and I don't think it did good things ffor Mom's health -- mental or physical.

[freakazoid]

Annnnnnd...back on topic, sort of. When anchored in various ports in the Med I would lower a 3lb coffee can to the harbor floor and try to catch the octopi. Sometimes it worked, most of the time it didn't.

bob

Was the coffee can merely for weight or was there something to it that octopi like?

[Perd Hapley]

On the one hand, I feel I have to root for the guy who enraged hippies by killing and eating an animal.

On the other hand, anyone stupid enough to willingly get close to, touch, much less eat, an octopus, deserves what he gets. Play stupid games...

On the other hand (or tentacle, since I don't have that many hands), he did rid the world of a nine-foot octopus...

[MillCreek]

I have to say that I find octopus delicious.  I have eaten it as sushi and as Italian and Greek food.  The grilled octopus prepared in the Greek style was my favorite.

[BobR]

Was the coffee can merely for weight or was there something to it that octopi like?

Octopi like to hide out in small enclosed places. It allows them to hide from things that would eat them, little did they know!

bob

[Northwoods]

Huge uproar when it happened.  The fishing related folks I know from another forum all fought the good fight to stop new regulations over this and lost.  Reality is that kid probably took 10% or more of that year's total GPO harvest for the entire Puget Sound.  Almost nobody targets them.  Total harvest is almost entirely by-catch and is tiny.  100x the current harvest would still be sustainable.  The restrictions they put in place were entirely so the *expletive deleted*ers in the diving community could feel like they did something.

I have thought about stringing some treble hooks in my crab pots though to see if can get a GPO that would otherwise leave me with an empty pot.

[Ned Hamford]

I'll be honest, when reading the start of that narrative, I was rooting for the octopus.   

[geronimotwo]

at what point will the protected octopus become a danger to divers?   all those who stood in inline to defend the octopie may find they wish they hadn't.  

as far as the white moose is concerned;  could the natives, who considered it sacred, have petitioned for it's preservation (obviously, before it was killed)?

[HankB]

It is much like the white moose that was recently harvested by a hunter in Nova Scotia, the ones who feel the moose is like a big white dog took a lot of offense at the guy, and the First Nations people went off the deep end (IMO).

Hmmm . . . since the First Nations types in Nova Scotia are mostly Indian (vs. Métis or Inuit),  I guess you could say that the redskins almost went on the warpath . . .

But I'm such a culturally sensitive kind of guy I won't indulge in that bit of political incorrectness myself. 

[Tallpine]

If a mama cat has eight kittens, is she an octopuss ?   

[TommyGunn]

I have to say that I find octopus delicious.  I have eaten it as sushi and as Italian and Greek food.  The grilled octopus prepared in the Greek style was my favorite.

I've had it as sushi in a Japanese restaurant.  Not bad but I prefer tuna. 

[Sergeant Bob]

I ate a lot of baby octopi when I was stationed in Panama ($10 for a huge, heaping plate) and it was truly delicious.
I still have it occasionally, though is is a lot more expensive and is limited to mostly larger and a bit tougher. Haven't tried beating it against a rock though.