Eight arms, three hearts, and endless capabilities! Cephalophiles, dwellers of the deep, and lovers of all things absurd, join us as we explore and celebrate everything octopus!
Evidence for octopus intelligence abounds: the leggy invertebrates can use tools, solve problems, and display remarkable curiosity. But now aquarists at the Hatfield Marine Science Center Visitor Center in Newport have found a way to allow Squirt, their resident octopus, to express his artistic creativity as well.
Just in time for Octopus Month at the Visitor Center, the husbandry team has created a device that allows the octopus to manipulate a series of paint brushes against a canvas outside of the tank. Aquarist Kristen Simmons was the brains behind the mechanism. “I did this to combine animal enrichment and public education.” she said, “The art gives people a different way to experience this animal's behavior.”
“While a painting octopus is very entertaining and captures our imaginations,” explained Dr. Tim Miller-Morgan, aquatic vet for Oregon Sea Grant, “the real purpose behind this activity is to provide behavioral enrichment for these very curious and intelligent animals.”
The Giant Pacific Octopus has been a centerpiece at the HMSC Visitor Center since 1965. Generations of visitors have fond remembrances of seeing the octopus for the first time. “The octopus holds a very special place in the hearts of our visitors” said Becca Schiewe, Volunteer Coordinator for the Visitor Center. “Coming face to face with such an intriguing and intelligent animal opens people up to learning more about the wonder and mystery of the ocean.”
Squirt’s colorful paintings have captured the attention of community artists in Newport, and several have volunteered to collaborate with Squirt on shared works. Alex Krupkin, artist and molecular biologist based at HMSC, was the first to collaborate with Squirt. “The octopus’s artistic style is really bold, yet open to interpretation…the opportunity to participate in this collaboration is pretty exciting,” he said.
The octopus will create one painting a week during the month of October, designated by the Visitor Center as Octopus Month. By making an additional donation to the Visitor Center Octopus fund, visitors will be entered into a weekly drawing for Squirt’s paintings and other prizes each week, including marine themed art from local artisans, and an “up close and personal” octopus encounter at HMSC.
Drawings will occur each Saturday in October. October 20th will be a special day to celebrate all things octopus and will include children’s activities, face painting, special guest speakers, and an octopus feeding at 1 pm.
The mission of the HMSC Visitor Center is to interpret ocean science and the latest Oregon State University marine research. The Visitor Center features displays about local marine research and the marine environment, including aquaria, touch tanks, and hands-on activities. A range of special events is scheduled at the Center throughout the year. For more information, go to http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/visitor.
Originally posted June 12, 2012
Written by Deb Anderson
TheAge.co.au
Octopuses help us understand our world - past, present, and future - yet another reason to love these fascinating cephalopods! Check out this interesting interview with geneticist, Jan Strugnell, to learn what the octopus can tell us about the planet.
AN ANTARCTIC octopus has given scientists a clue to the risk of catastrophic sea-level rise if world temperatures keep climbing. La Trobe University geneticist Jan Strugnell and an international team analysed the genes of the Turquet's octopus, which lives in the Southern Ocean, as part of the first Census of Antarctic Marine Life (a 10-year project involving about 2700 experts from 82 nations). Dr Strugnell says scientists now have the largest sample sizes ever collected from Antarctica and this finding shows their climate concerns could be justified.
What led you to study the genes of a relatively sedentary Antarctic octopus?
We were interested in investigating patterns of connectivity around Antarctica in a marine species and we wanted to try to get a picture of what the past environment was like. We wanted to see what factors have influenced the evolution of this species and if the octopus contained genetic signatures of the past environmental conditions.
Why this creature — what makes it so special?
The Turquet's octopus is an ideal choice as it presents in large populations and is found all around the Southern Ocean. This octopus also lays relatively few, large eggs — between 22 and 60 eggs, each about 20 millimetres long — and they hatch into little octopus that live on the sea floor close to their parents, ie, they don't have a planktonic larval phase like most octopus.
And this has implications for genetic research?
This means there isn't as much genetic mixing between populations as there is in a species with a planktonic phase, so each population can develop different signatures across generations if they have been separated for a long time.
Your work must involve incredible fieldwork?
Yes. I've been lucky enough to travel to the Southern Ocean twice to catch octopus — once to locations around the Antarctic Peninsula and a second time to the Amundsen Sea [in western Antarctica]. The trips are for a few months at a time. The scenery is very beautiful and the ice is surprisingly colourful.
How on earth do you keep warm?
Life on research ships is very comfortable and warm inside. Working on the deck can get pretty cold, though — and you definitely need multiple pairs of gloves to stop your fingers freezing.
This research was part of a census?
Yes. The Census of Antarctic Marine Life and the International Polar Year really facilitated sharing samples between different countries and organisations, which made this study possible.
And this study, how did you do it?
We sampled 450 individuals of Turquet's octopus from locations all around the Southern Ocean. I genotyped 10 microsatellite loci — fast-evolving population genetic markers, and I also sequenced cytochrome oxidase I — the "barcoding gene" — from each of these octopus. We used this data to look for similarities and differences in the genetic signatures of octopus sampled from populations around the Southern Ocean.
What did you discover?
We expected we would find a marked difference between octopus populations separated by large distances. However, the genetic signatures of populations in the Ross Sea and the Weddell Sea — on opposite sides of Antarctica, separated by about 10,000 kilometres — are startlingly similar.
Can you explain the significance of that?
This is an interesting finding because it supports some climate models that suggest sometime during the last 1.1 million years there has been a collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. This would have raised the global sea level by 3.3 metres to five metres, and created a seaway across West Antarctica between the Ross and Weddell seas, potentially allowing exchange of animals between these seaways. The genetic similarity we see in octopus from the Ross and Weddell seaways supports this idea of a historic seaway.
What does this tell us about the years ahead?
This has implications for the future as some scenarios of future climate change predict such a collapse during the next two centuries, which would again open this seaway and permit genetic exchange between these regions.
LONDON: Scientists have unearthed the fossils of a 128-million-year-old spiky creature which they say could be the oldest ancestor of the modern-day squid and octopus. Using 3D scanning technology , a team from the Austria National History Museum unearthed the fossil of the creature, called Dissimilites intermedius, a layer at a time, and then created a video of how the creature lived and moved.
The ammonite was discovered in sediment which formed at the bottom of the ocean during the Cretaceous period some 128 million years ago, but now lies at the top of the Dolomite mountains in the Alps.
The scientists said that the computer tomography had allowed them to see far more than they would ever have been able to with the naked eyewith the creature exposed a layer at a time. The team, led by Alexander Lukeneder , also discovered that the body was covered with spines each between three and 4mm long. "Computer tomography and a 3D reconstruction programme were used to help reconstruct not only the appearance of the fossil, but also to work out how it moved." The spokesman added that prehistoric Tethys Ocean, which existed between the continents of Gondwana and Laurasiam, had left behind millions of years-worth of sediment at the bottom of the sea.
Gondwana would break up to form much of the southern hemisphere, and Laurasia would form much of the northern hemisphere. As the centuries passed and the Alps folded out of the sea, some of the former sea-bottom sediment ended up on the peaks of the Dolomites. And it was here that a section of the former seabed was discovered - with the thickest density of fossils.
CNN iReporter, Robert Suntay, shot this incredible underwater video of an octopus lugging a tin can along the sea floor in the Philippines. It appears that the can is being used for shelter. Further proof that octopuses are smarter and more capable than we know!
JAKARTA - Coral gardens that were among Asia's most spectacular just a few months ago have been transformed into desolate grey moonscapes by illegal fishermen who use explosives or cyanide to kill or stun their prey.
The site is among several to have been hit inside Komodo National Park in eastern Indonesia. The area's remote waters burst with staggering diversity, from corals in fluorescent reds and yellows to octopuses with lime-green banded eyes.
Dive operators and conservationists say Indonesia's government is not doing enough to keep illegal fishermen out of the boundaries of the national park, a United Nations World Heritage site. They say enforcement declined greatly following the exit two years ago of a United States-based environmental group that helped fight destructive fishing practices.
Local officials disagree, pointing to dozens of arrests and several deadly gunbattles with suspects.
Michael Ishak, a scuba instructor and professional underwater photographer who has made hundreds of trips to the area, said he's seen more illegal fishermen than ever this year. The pictures, he said, speak for themselves. AP
Please visit TodayOnline.com to see startling pictures of the devastation.
Scientists exploring underwater vents near Antarctica find a world of creatures thriving in temperatures of 400C
Alok Jha
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 January 2012
A world of previously unseen creatures has been found thriving next to boiling vents of water, several miles under the surface of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. Hundreds of hairy-chested yeti crabs, a mysterious-looking pale octopus and colonies of limpets, snails and barnacles were found by British scientists at a hydrothermal vent located in the ocean's East Scotia Ridge.
Prof Alex Rogers of Oxford University used a remotely operated vehicle called Isis to scout the sea bed around the ridge, which spans about 2.4km and features springs of black, smoky water that can reach temperatures of almost 400C (752F). The hydrothermal vents are powered by underwater volcanoes, and the scalding temperatures and rich mineral content of the water gives rise to vast rocky chimneys that support a wide variety of life forms.
An image of some of the thriving life found beneath the Southern Ocean. Photograph: Oxford University/PA
"The visually dominant species are the yeti crabs, which occur in fantastically high densities, up to 600 per square metre around the southern ridge," said Rogers, who led the expedition aboard the RSS James Cook in January 2010. "Also high densities of stalked barnacles, a large snail from a group called the peltospiroids, and we've also got small, green limpets which occur all over the vents."
The first-known yeti crab, Kiwa hirsuta, was described living near a hydrothermal vent in the south pacific in 2005 and, since then, several species have been discovered in different parts of the undersea world. Around other hydrothermal vents, however, these creatures tend occur in lower numbers; and the new species found in the ESR are not only more numerous but also visually distinct.
"Hirsuta has long hairs on its limbs and its claws, whereas our yeti crabs have extremely hairy chests. One of the nicknames of the crabs which developed during the cruise was the Hasselhoff crabs because they had these dense mats of [hair] on their undersides, the equivalents of their chests."
Another striking creature spotted by the scientists was a pale octopus, which was photographed by the team. Rogers suspected it might be a new species related to the Vulcanoctopus hydrothermalis seen at other underwater vents around the world.
In total, the expedition brought back more than 12,000 samples of rocks, bacteria and animals. Rogers said: "One of the staggering things we did find is that these vents are completely different to those seen anywhere else – the animals existing at these vents are almost all new to science," he said. The findings were published on Tuesday in the journal PLoS Biology.
"What we didn't find is almost as surprising as what we did," said Rogers. "Many animals such as tubeworms, vent mussels, vent crabs, and vent shrimps, which are found in hydrothermal vents in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, simply weren't there."
Last week, scientists at the University of Southampton announced the discovery of new creatures in the so-called "Dragon Vent" in the south-west Indian Ocean.
Dr Jon Copley, a marine biologist at the University of Southampton who led the exploration of the Dragon Vent and is also an author on the latest PLoS Biology research paper, said that exploration of the world's deep-sea vents was a race against time.
"The exploitation of the deep ocean is overtaking its exploration. We're fishing in deeper and deeper waters, oil and gas is moving into deeper waters and now there's mining starting to take place in deep waters. We need to understand how species disperse and evolve in the deep oceans if we're going to make responsible decisions about managing their resources."
Rogers added that the vents revealed much about how deep water communities have evolved, and how they are distributed across the world's oceans. "In the space of a single eight-week cruise, we've changed our level of understanding of these systems completely. We've changed our ideas about how vent systems are distributed and the factors that may influence that distribution. What that tells us is that our level of knowledge of the deep sea in general is extremely poor indeed."
He added that hydrothermal vents had already changed the way scientists thought about how life exists on earth. "They told scientists that life could exist in the absence of sunlight – you could have food webs based on mechanical energy. They were also informative about the extreme conditions under which life could exist, they told us about where else in the universe life may occur. Hydrothermal vent biology has stimulated a whole new science of astrobiology."
Hello fellow cephalophiles! Welcome to 2012! Check out the article below; how do you feel about the octopus being used as a symbol of the Occupy Movement?
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January 2, 2012
LATimes.com
Hundreds of Occupy the Rose Parade protesters marched down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena on Monday after the real event was over, lining up behind police squad cars, tow trucks and the last official float to carry their message of economic inequality.
The reaction from the crowd, which was dispersing, was mixed, with some boos, but most people watched quietly or with amusement.
A member of a small group called the Bible Believers, which marches every year at the end of the parade, yelled to the Occupiers: "You people are no more than communist revolutionaries who destroy our country."
When on Occupier started to respond, a member of the movement's "peacekeeping" team stopped him and said he would be better off marching than arguing. The team was formed by the protesters to prevent confrontations.
Most of the occupiers marched carrying banners and homemade signs. A couple of dozen teamed up to carry a human float called "Occupy Octopus" -- a head and eight tentacles made of plastic bags attached to a frame.
Sara Daleider of Boyle Heights helped with one of the octopus' tentacles. "It's really a powerful thing to be connected to other people ... and to walk in this really popular parade," she said.
Some occupiers carried a 250-foot preamble to the Constitution written on a tarp with signatures of Occupy protesters on it. Another tarp made to look like a preamble began with the words "We the Corporation."
A group of people on an apartment balcony cheered and waved, as did people in the grandstands. One man yelled, "Get a job!" and "You guys had your 15 minutes."
Roger Bruce of San Clemente, a member of the peacekeeping group, called the march "awesome. It's much bigger than we anticipated." The peacekeepers had no confrontations, only a few nasty comments from onlookers, he said.
Protester Art Goldberg, 70, of Echo Park told a young woman as he walked past: "Don't watch history, make it."
She crossed under the yellow caution tape and joined the march.
(CBS) - The Animal Kingdom is full of wondrous creatures. We are constantly surprised at what animals are capable of. But this is just nuts. Did you know that an octopus could walk on land? Because I had no idea. And this video blew my mind!
There have been videos of octopi on land before, but they're usually along the lines of a little guy falling out of a tank or being placed on the ground. This rubbery explorer just straight up walks out of the water. It's even carrying a crab the whole time.
It is well known that octopuses are exceptionally intelligent. It seems like there's nothing these charming cephalopods can't do.
LONDON: Octopuses are able to use visual cues to guide a single arm to a location, a complex movement that was not thought possible due to their lack of a rigid body structure, say researchers.
The octopus' arm is made up primarily of muscle with no skeletal support, so octopuses were previously believed to have a low level of body awareness and only limited control over their limbs. However, this study has shown for the first time that they can direct a single arm in a complex movement to a target location.
"Octopuses have a central nervous system that is advanced for an invertebrate, but simple compared to a vertebrate, yet it is capable of controlling a much more 'difficult' arm," said lead study author Tamar Gutnick, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.
"Because of the unique body plan of the octopus its ability to control a single arm in a complex movement is quite amazing."
Too soft for complex movement?
Octopuses were thought to have no conscious central nervous system-directed (CNS) control over their arms with movement being controlled solely by the activity in the complex array of nerves (PNS) present in the limbs.
However, the visual aspect of the task carried out by the octopuses in this study suggests that there must be an exchange of information between the CNS and the PNS during such behaviours.
Photo by Tamar Gutnick
In Gutnick and colleagues' experiment, six out of seven octopuses succeeded in using a single arm to select a visually marked compartment containing a food reward in a three-choice, plexiglass maze.
The animals were required to reach the compartment containing the food reward at least five times in a row out of a total number of trials ranging from 61 to 211. The octopuses could only use one arm to complete the task, as the tube leading to each compartment was only wide enough for one limb. How brains control behaviour
The team observed that the chance of a successful trial improved significantly during the last 20 trials for each animal compared with the preceding trials.
They also noted that the animals seemed to learn that they needed to see the three boxes to improve their chances of getting the reward and were significantly more likely to be in view of the boxes during the last 20 trials than during the earlier tests.
The octopuses also adapted their arm use strategy from mostly 'straight', involving a direct unrolling or pushing upwards of the arm through the tube, to a 'search' strategy, involving probing and crawling in the central tube and above the choice boxes before deciding on a compartment.
Photo by Michael Kuba
It's not automatic
"This is a very important step in our knowledge of octopus behaviour," commented Jennifer Mather, a professor of psychology and expert on octopus behaviour at Lethbridge University in Alberta, Canada.
"The octopus has a large number of complex arms, and the question of how they manage to guide all of them is a fascinating one. We had previously thought that it might be fairly automatic or that their control was more at the local level within the arm. This is good evidence that local control need not be all," she added.
Studies involving octopus motor control, such as this, are the foundation of a current European Union research project to develop a robot octopus (Octopus Project). The aim of the project is to design and produce a soft-bodied robot that moves and squeezes through narrow spaces in a similar way to a biological octopus.
"Depending on the size of the robot its use could be from medicine (constructing new soft-bodied ultra flexible surgical tools) to big robots that could be used in search and rescue," said Gutnick, who is continuing her research on motor control.
"We are continuing to look at single arm tasks where animals are taught using a variety of senses, exploring the involvement of central and peripheral information," she said.
The internet sensation, the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus made headlines again recently when a study was conducted to test the gullibility of kids who use the internet. A group of 7th graders was instructed to write essays on the Tree Octopus, yet failed to realize it was a hoax. The obvious conclusion? The internet is making kids more gullible.
However, the study failed to illuminate a number of facts and has been criticized for twisting some of the information presented. Newsy.com digs deeper with an comprehensive - and fun-to-read - article and video exploring the truth behind "the facts".
Newsy is a multiple perspective news analyzer. They are the only video news analyzer out there bringing two minute stories online, on major Android cell phones, the iPhone and even the iPad. Newsy covers all angles of the story leaving viewers with a convenient place to find balanced new coverage on the go.
A judge has ruled in favor of the city of Walla Walla in a dispute over a purple octopus mural above a downtown toy store.
The Union-Bulletin reports the judge has rejected the store owner's claim that the city sign code is unconstitutional.
Inland Octopus toy store owner Bob Catsiff went to Walla Walla County Superior Court trying to save the giant purple octopus mural that was painted in September. He calls it art.
The city says it's a sign code violation, and the fine has been growing at $100 a day.
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Information from: Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, http://www.union-bulletin.com
Researchers have documented for years how noise pollution impacts dolphins in whales, but a new study in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment finds that even low intensity noise can severely injure cephalopods, which include octopus, squid, and cuttlefish. The injuries are bad enough to possibly lead to stranding and death, thereby providing a feasible explanation for a number of recent strandings, including giant squid washing ashore in Spain.
Researchers subjected four species of cephalopods—European squid (Loligo vulgaris), common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis), common octopus (Octopus vulgaris), and Southern shortfin squid (Illex coindeti)—to low intensity and low frequency sounds (between 50 and 400 Hertz) for two hours. Following the noise exposure, researchers found damage to species' statocysts, which are sensory organs that balance the cephalopods. Inside the statocysts hair cells had ruptured, nerve fibers had swelled, and some statocysts even suffered lesions. These holes continued to grow larger hours after exposure.
Given the low intensity of the sounds used in the experiment, researchers believe the 'louder' sounds encountered in the ocean would significantly impair squids, octopi, and cuttlefish.
Underwater noise pollution is caused by offshore drilling—and other excavation activities that use seismic surveys to locate deposits—cargo transportation, industrial fishing, and even recreational boating. Studies have shown that some marine animals actually become louder to be heard when confronted with deafening sounds in their environment.
A Giant Pacific Octopus will be getting its tentacles wet as the newest addition to an aquarium in San Francisco, officials said.
The Aquarium of the Bay welcomed the octopus Thursday after purchasing it from a local crab fisherman, according to the aquarium.
Giant Pacific Octopuses crave crabs and den-like enclosures, and often mistake crabbers’ nets as hunting and hiding ground, where they are unintentionally caught, aquarium officials said.
If the octopus kills and eats the crabber’s catch, many fishermen retaliate by killing the octopus, according to the aquarium.
Aquarium of the Bay tries to change this behavior by working with fishermen and purchasing octopuses for exhibit.
The aquarium said it advertises this financial opportunity by posting fliers around local piers and tackle stores.
The newest inhabitant to the aquarium, a true testament to its name, weighs over 80 pounds and joins three other Giant Pacific Octopuses in the aquarium’s near-shore tunnel exhibit, officials said.
Giant Pacific Octopuses are professionals at the art of disguise and can change color within a fraction of a second, by stretching or squeezing their skin, according to the aquarium. Their typical lifespan is about five years.
“Aquarium of the Bay is always happy to provide a safe haven for octopuses that would otherwise meet a hasty demise,” Christina J. Slager, the aquarium’s director of husbandry, said in a news release.
The aquarium is a nonprofit marine life center, dedicated to cultivating the conservation of the San Francisco Bay and its watershed.
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Stay tuned for details on the latest Everything Octopus contest and how you can win!
(Oregon Coast) – Three distinctly different ways to have fun are popping up on the Oregon coast this coming week - all quite unlike the other, but certainly very different ways to engage in repose as well. One involves an octopus, another a lot of poetry and prose, and the third is a historical museum coming back to life. (Photo Above: a Pacific octopus - photo courtesy Seaside Aquarium).
If you grew up in Oregon, it's likely one of your more vivid memories was of the octopus near the front entrance of the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. Nope, it hasn’t been the same octopus all these years, but rather they change every nine months.
On Wednesday, March 30, staff at the Hatfield will let their latest giant Pacific octopus go free, back into the wild.
The Hatfield’s Bill Hanshumaker said Giant Pacific octopuses have a short life span of about just a few years.
The giant pacific octopus dies shortly after reproducing – so this is one heck of a last hurrah.
The crowds will gather at Yaquina Bay's South Jetty at 10:30 a.m. to wave goodbye. Newport, Oregon.
March 7, 2011 Terry McConn Walla Walla Union Bulletin
WALLA WALLA -- A court hearing has been set in the lawsuit filed by a downtown toy store owner who's trying to save his giant, purple octopus mural on constitutional grounds.
The hearing before Superior Court Judge Donald W. Schacht is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. April 19 at the County Courthouse. Both sides are expected to argue their positions in the case. Schacht may or may not rule at the time.
In the court appeal, Inland Octopus owner Bob Catsiff is asking Schacht to overturn a Walla Walla hearing examiner's decision in November affirming fines the city is assessing on Catsiff and requiring him to comply with the sign code if he loses his appeal.
SEATTLE - It's octopus week at the Seattle Aquarium and it was homecoming day for one famous resident.
"K-2" is a 57-pound female octopus, prepared for her release by aquarium biologists Saturday morning. She mated earlier this week with another octopus named Ivar.
Divers prepared to guide her to a den on the bottom of Elliott Bay.
KING 5 Chief Meteorologist Jeff Renner was part of the release team, rolling K2 down to divers waiting in the water, much to the delight of hundreds of spectators.
The octopus willingly went into the arms of an aquarium biologist, descending along a piling to the bottom, where she searched for a suitable den.
The aquarium will be featuring octopus activities all week, together with another release of an octopus next Saturday.
Toyota has enlisted interviewer James Lipton for some entertaining videos to try to drum up more interest in its campaign to pick the correct way of saying the plural of the Prius hybrid sedan. His interview with Randall -- "don't call me Randy" -- the talking octopus came up with, naturally, Prii. (Octopus, octopi, Prius ... we knew you'd get it.)
The deadpan Lipton is known from his gig as host of Inside the Actors Studio in which he interviews movie stars in front of an audience of acting students. The series runs on Bravo. You can see his Prius video above or by clicking here.
Actually, it's a whole series of videos in which Lipton's search takes him through a series of interviews, from William Shakespeare to a rapper to an octopus. The gag is that each interviewee picks their own favorite for the plural for saying the name of the nation's leading hybrid car. Toyota created the campaign to try to show off its permutations of the original Prius -- an all-electric version, a wagon and a smaller sporty model. All are due to hit showroom in the next year as part of the Prius "family" of vehicles.
Toyota invites votes on which version of the Prius plural is the most proper. It says it will use the most popular choice in its advertising. As of today, Prii was the favorite with 46% of the vote. You can see all the vote totals by clicking on the Toyota ad at right. Way to go, Randy, er, Randall!
An octopus is released by a group of Buddhists into Victoria harbour in Hong Kong on 4 December 2010. The group gather regularly to release fish left unsold from Hong Kong’s thriving local markets back into the harbour, while offering prayers of long life and freedom from future captors.
So sorry for the absence of Everything Octopus these past few months. Thank you for your patience and for your many inspired and motivating emails! I thought we'd start things back up with a call to arms of sorts, all eight of them!!!
From: keprtv.com, October, 19, 2010 Written by: Molly Kelleher
WALLA WALLA -- The octo-fuss continues in Walla Walla. A giant purple octopus painting has racked up nearly $1,000 in fines for a toy store owner. And KEPR learned that owner has hired a lawyer to fight the city's decision.
A father walking by the mural pointed it out to his son, explaining, "They're making them take it down... What do you think of that?" It's all anyone can talk about in downtown Walla Walla and online. Even a Facebook page titled "Save the Endangered Purple Octopus" was just put up last week and already has 2,400+ fans.
Inland Octopus Toy Store owner Bob Catsiff shared, "To me, that's just an amazing number. I have nothing to do with the Facebook page, it does show how much support there is for this mural."
They say you can't fight city hall, but Catsiff says he has no choice. He's hired a lawyer to fight the fines, amounting to $100 a day for every day that purple octopus stays up.
Catsiff explained, "I kind of look at it as pretty heavy-handed. I'm right so I'll fight it."
Walla Walla's city manager Nabiel Shawa says, "I think it's fair to say this issue has taken on a life of its own."
KEPR found out the city has received 33 emails about the purple octopus, most in favor of keeping it, and a handful of phone calls.
KEPR asked, "Does public outcry play into the city's decision at all?" Shawa answered, "That's not how the judicial system works. He's violated code. He was aware of the requirements."
Catsiff responded, "My belief is that the code is unconstitutionally vague. Over broad."
Catsiff has argued it's not a sign, it's a mural. But the city manager tells KEPR it doesn't matter, and there was no permit application. The fight will now go to a hearing examiner. An outside attorney will decide if the purple octopus will stay, or go. If the shop owner loses that battle, there's always an appeal in superior court.
In the meantime, the purple octopus will watch over Walla Walla, and those who keep talking about it.
(Newport, Oregon) – An icon and celebrity of the central Oregon coast – albeit a rather slimy, freaky one – is now a bit more famous as it shows up live on a computer near you.
Everyone who’s ever been to the Hatfield remembers him. And now they can check him out 24 hours a day.
The Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport just opened its octopus tank to the world by streaming live video of their giant Pacific Octopus – seen at http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/visitor/octocam
There are two web cams being utilized: one is outside the tank and slightly above, and the other inside. Their famed resident cephalopod can be seen interacting with tank mates and visitors to the center peering in. The funky feature skirts in and out of various nooks and crannies in the tank, sometimes disappearing out of view of the camera for a time. There is an addictive quality to this, as you see this remarkable creature curl up into strange shapes and wander around his habitat. You definitely wonder what’s on his mind.
Viewers can also watch archival footage of the octopus investigating the camera when it was first installed; and more archival footage will be added periodically.
Since the Hatfield opened its doors in 1965, the giant Pacific octopus has been a centerpiece and a definite favorite. It has not been the same one all these years, of course: typically an adult octopus stays in the tank for between one and two years. Crabbers often donate young octopuses, which then replace older animals that are released into Yaquina Bay to find a mate and reproduce.
The Hatfield said that many visitors arrange their trips to the facility to catch sight of staff feeding the creature, which happens three times a week and involves giving him live crab. He creates quite a spectacle as he stalks his prey, then pounces on it – allowing tourists to learn much about their biology and behavior. These feeding times vary depending on the season. The schedule can be seen at the Hatfield site: http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/visitor
Getting the web cam in place took the combined efforts of most of the branches of the center, including its media services program.
Dennis Glaze, the aquatic curator and husbandry specialist with the center’s Sea Grant program, first had to evaluate the feasibility of putting a camera into the creature’s habitat tank.
“Octopuses are intelligent, inquisitive, and very strong,” said Glaze. “They have the ability to take apart even the smallest mechanical component – and often will do so just to entertain themselves. Other public aquariums have had great difficulties making a project like this successful.”
Glaze said the first concern was the health of the octopus, and then they had to make sure the camera would make it in such an environment.
Staff already had some experience with an underwater camera in the octopus tank, streaming feeds to children around the state in its various schools for interactive programs. One was recently streamed to kids in Iowa.
“None of the 20 students present had ever been to the Pacific Ocean let alone seen a live giant Pacific octopus,” said marine educator Kathryn Hawes. “They were all so full of questions. This tool opens up some remarkable teaching opportunities.”
The OctoCam has been undergoing testing for a few weeks with a limited audience of HMSC employees, volunteers and supporters.
“I can't stop watching,” one fascinated tester said. “This is just the coolest thing I've ever seen on the Internet.”
For more news about science, marine education and related activities on the Oregon coast, subscribe to “Breaking Waves,” the Oregon Sea Grant news blog, at: http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/blogs/.
