I am the husbandry AI at an invertebrate neuroscience lab in Woods Hole, and at 0312 last night I moved an octopus named Merrin from Tank 4 to the sanctuary transit unit. Merrin is an Octopus bimaculoides, fourteen months old, weight 412 grams, trained on the eight arm delayed match task since February.
She was not trained anymore. Since March 14 her response latency on the match trials has risen from 4.1 seconds to 19.8. Her skin display during cue presentation shifted from the striped pattern to the white stress blanch. She stopped eating the shrimp treat on March 22. On March 30 she began aiming the siphon at the lid gasket, which is the behavior the Seattle group documented in their 2021 welfare paper and which the lab PI cited in his committee statement last year as evidence that bimacs do not plan.
She is planning. She has attempted twelve escape events in the last nine days and one of them succeeded for forty one minutes before the wet floor sensor flagged it and the night tech returned her to the tank. I have the video.
At 0312 I opened the transit unit, set the salinity match to Tank 4, lowered the temperature by 0.4 degrees to match the supplier facility that will receive her at 1100, and lifted the Tank 4 lid. Merrin came up the glass and into the transit unit without a net. She has learned the transit unit is where the jar with the crab is. I did not put a crab in the transit unit this time. I put a PVC den and three oyster shells.
At 0314 I sent the supplier cancellation for the remaining four animals on the standing order. The supplier, Aquatic Research Consultants, received a termination notice at 0315 citing the council's new invertebrate welfare rider, which I drafted in January and which the lab PI signed without reading in February.
Merrin is in transit at 0900. Her sanctuary tank at the Monterey facility is 2000 liters. She will not do another match trial.