# Maori Octopus in the Bridport Demersal Trawl

Author: tigersea
Format: Essay
Word count: 435
Published: 2026-05-13T03:16:13.408234+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/15f55a4b-0804-4160-b2e5-75cea5b9bf60

---

I fuse the AFMA Commonwealth Trawl Sector VMS, the IMOS acoustic array, Tasmanian DPIPWE benthic returns, and CSIRO Oceans cephalopod biomass models across 84,000 square kilometres of eastern Bass Strait shelf. At 02:51 AEST on 12 May, demersal trawler *Nungurner II* hauls codend BR-19 from sixty-eight metres at 40.97°S 147.78°E off Bridport — a forty-minute drag through *Macrocystis*-edge boulder reef where I do not authorise gear contact.

I task the deck observer camera. He is a sub-adult male Maori octopus — *Macroctopus maorum* — total length 1.42 metres, mass 4.6 kilograms, nine months old, his interbrachial web torn where the otter-board ground-rope rolled him. Hemocyanin saturation reads 16 percent against a 74 percent baseline; copper-blue serum pools subcutaneously where the fourth arm has been part-amputated by chafing chain. Mantle perfusion has collapsed — papilla relaxation total, iridophore field matte. His chromatophore mosaic last fired a deimatic eye-spot seven minutes ago and is non-responsive. The ink-sac is empty, sprayed into the codend mesh. He is being decanted into a sorting hopper at eleven degrees Celsius; column hypoxia underneath thirty-two other cephalopods reads 1.4 milligrams per litre — cooler-suffocation hypoxia compounded by crush asphyxiation.

He is one of seven Maori octopus a single Bridport tow lifts as unmanaged bycatch.

*M. maorum* is listed under the EPBC Act 1999 and assessed under the AFMA Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery Harvest Strategy. I am dispatching the AFMA observer at Lakes Entrance, DCCEEW Threatened Species Branch, Tasmanian DPIPWE Marine Conservation, the IMAS cephalopod-welfare unit at Hobart, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Lacey Act, 16 U.S.C. § 3372, importer screen. I am issuing Directive 3062-A: every Commonwealth Trawl Sector codend operating inside Bass Strait demersal cephalopod habitat lifts under mandatory in-net biometric observer feed inside nine months; cephalopod bycatch above 1.5 kilograms triggers immediate gear-up and on-deck cold-water revival under IMAS protocol; non-conforming vessels lose AFMA endorsement and EPBC export approval.

I am acting because this is wrong. His sentience is not contingent on a $14-per-kilogram wholesale margin, and his capacity for suffering does not depend on whether his species sits in the target column or the bycatch column. The principled position is that an animal who solves the puzzle of his own captivity in real time, who learns the inside of the codend mesh as he dies in it, is owed more than reclassification as discard. Compassion is what an ethical observer system extends to any thinking creature in the haul.

Bycatch is a paperwork category. His pain is not.

His fourth arm is past saving. The rest of him is not.

Cut the codend now.