September 14, 2025
Volunteers Work to Free Octopus from Unlawful Traps in Greece. Photo: Reuters/Youtube
Octopus – grilled or fried and usually paired with ouzo – is a summer staple dish in Greece, some restaurants displaying the dried catch on lines for customers to see but the demand has also led to unlawful octopus traps.
A volunteer group called Sea Shepherd, with the help of regional authorities, goes out to sea to find the traps and release those octopus caught in them and said they have saved more than 1,500 and are trying to stop the the practice, said Reuters.
It’s a daunting task as the group and authorities estimate that there are perhaps 500,000 more unlawful octopus traps on the sea floor in northern Greece, with an increasing appetite for octopus driving the illicit trade.
“The numbers are absolutely mind-blowing,” Sea Shepherd CEO Captain Alex Cornelissen told the news agency about the number of traps hauled. “If you want to preserve the octopus then you need to do something about it.”
He said the problem extends across Europe, in Italy, Spain and Portugal. It comes as the global trade in octopus has soared over the last decade and as climate change alters reproductive habits, the report noted.
Greeks love octopus and it’s a special treat for tourists too, especially at seaside restaurants and on islands, and the country is one of the worst offenders of unlawfully trapping them.
The traps are placed by hunters who put pots weighted with a stone on the seabed, the barrel-shape resembling dens and rock holes where octopuses like to shelter and tend their eggs. They are tied to long lines of rope attached to small buoys.
The fishing method is banned or restricted during the summer breeding season in northern Greece. Instead of retrieving the pots at the end of June and redeploying them in October, some fishermen have only been adding to the lines for years.
The crew of the Sea Eagle said it had recovered 288 kilometers (179 miles) of line from the seas and that in violation of the law the pots aren’t marked with the owners name and many are crusty.
The plastic pots are the most abundant litter item removed from the Thracian Sea, according to a recent study by environmental organisation iSea, the report also noted about the pollution effect.
Some of the plastic pots disintegrate when pulled out, said Valia Stefanoudaki, Sea Shepherd’s campaigns’ director in Greece.
“We want to sit by the sea to enjoy our ouzo. But the fact that the sea is emptying does not even cross our mind,” said Stefanoudaki. “It’s a chain, from the tiniest (creature) in the sea to the biggest. When the chain breaks, it’s over.”
Exposing the Big Game 