6 Minute English / Should we farm octopus?

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Neil.

And I m Beth.

Beth, what do you think about when I say the word octopus?

Well, I know they're intelligent, they can change colour to hide in their surroundings, and of course, they have 8 arms. But, I have to admit, I also think they about how they taste delicious.

I think so too, as do plenty of other people. Octopus is most commonly eaten in South Korea, Spain, Portugal and Japan where they can't get enough of that umami flavour. Umami is one of the 5 basic tastes and is a savoury flavour. Until recently, octopus has only been caught in the wild. But now, a Spanish multinational company has announced it will be ready to sell farmed octopus soon, which campaigners have described as 'ethically and ecologically unjustified'.

This is because octopuses are sentient, an adjective describing a thing that experiences feelings, like pleasure and pain. Humans and many other animals, like pigs, monkeys and birds, are also sentient. So, is it OK to farm octopus when they have been shown to experience feelings? In this programme, we ll be discussing whether farming octopus can ever be ethical, and, as usual, we ll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

But first I have a question for you, Beth. Octopuses are known for their ability to problem solve and, when kept in tanks, have been known to escape. But, where did Inky the octopus go when he broke out of his tank at the New Zealand National Aquarium in 2016? Was it:

a) down a drain into the Pacific Ocean?

b) to the tank of a female octopus? or,