Dr. Cameron Clifford, a dentist in Edmond, Okla., said his son Cal, 9, has been interested in octopuses since he was 3 years old. “Every birthday, every Christmas, every holiday, he always says: ‘All I want is an octopus,'” said Dr. Clifford.
For a while, the family piqued Cal’s interest by buying him octopus toys and octopus T-shirts, dressing him up as an octopus for Halloween and taking him to aquariums to see live ones. that octopus.
Then, last October, Dr. Clifford for the real deal.
He ordered his son a California two-spot octopus to be kept as a pet in a tank in his bedroom. It arrived via UPS in a water bag packed inside a cardboard box on October 11, Cal’s ninth birthday. Cal named it Terrance.
Unbeknownst to the family, Terrance was a woman, who released what Dr. Clifford as “a chandelier” of blooming little eggs in December. He assumed that the eggs were not fertilized until one evening in February, when, while cleaning the tank, he took one and examined it carefully.
“I accidentally popped it, and this droplet came out and spread these little tentacles and made three swim strokes in my view,” he said. “It was really surprising.”
Over the next week or so, 49 more hatchlings emerged from their eggs, prompting a family scramble to keep the tiny octopuses alive and find them homes. Dr. Clifford is documenting the TikTok experience, where some of his videos have received more than two million views. Viewers responded with crying and heart emojis.
“It’s expensive, wet chaos,” says Dr. Clifford, 36, who spent thousands of dollars on tanks, water filters, water chillers, crabs, snails and clams in an expanding cephalopod aquarium that briefly took over part of a bathroom in the family home. Among other challenges, he had to battle a small electrical fire and about 10 gallons of salt water that spilled onto his son’s bedroom carpet.
“It’s a lot of work,” he said. “It’s a lot of work and emotion and money and time.”
It is also beneficial, he said. The family loved taking care of Terrance, said Dr. Clifford, and makes him “puzzles” by placing a crab in a clear container for him to pull out and eat. Terrance is “a social cephalopod,” for one TikTok called to him, showing him extending a tentacle over the tank as if to say hello.
Many scientists discourage people from keeping octopuses as pets, citing that most require live food, carefully calibrated water conditions and frequent stimulation. They also try to escape from their tanks and usually live less than two years.
Paul Clarkson, director of farming operations at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, Calif., said that when he first heard about the Clifford family, he thought “they had no business raising octopuses.”
But after watching the TikTok videos of Dr. Clifford, he was “surprised.”
“It’s a delightful story and they seem to have done a wonderful job as home aquarium keepers, taking care of that animal,” Mr. Clarkson said. “Clearly they went to great lengths and expense.”
However, he cautioned that most pet owners are not equipped to care for an octopus.
“They don’t make good pets and, as that family documents in their story, the effort, time, money involved in caring for that animal is enormous and, at times, a kind of 24/7 work,” Mr. Clarkson said. “My recommendation is: Don’t try this at home.”
Jordan Baker, senior aquarist at the New England Aquarium in Boston, said the California two-spot octopus, known as the bimac, can lay up to 800 eggs, “so this family was lucky to have 50 or more of them. end of their experience .”
“Managing water quality, care and the short life span for sensitive animals like octopuses can be a full-time job, especially with hatchlings involved,” he said. “It can be done, but for the average octopus enthusiast, the cost involved in both dollars and labor would be high.”
said Dr. Clifford that he ordered Terrance through a broker he saw through Octopus News Magazine Online, which calls itself “an online community and news source for anything and everything related to octopuses, squids and cephalopods.” He told her that the octopus came from a diver with a fishing license in California, who people are allowed to hunt octopuses in areas that are not state marine reserves.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife website calls California two-spot octopuses “welcome pets to the aquarium” and says they are among the most common species used to study octopus genomics, development and evolution.
But some object to keeping octopuses as pets, and Dr. Clifford that he faced some criticism on social media. Octopuses have gained widespread attention for their intelligence since the film “My Octopus Teacher,” about a South African naturalist’s daily interactions with a tiny octopus, won an Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2021.
“Octopuses are wild creatures whose habitat is the ocean and coastal seas,” said Barbara J. King, a professor emerita of anthropology at William and Mary, who wrote about octopuses. “There, they live in burrows, can use tools as they go about their daily lives and, in some places, express complex social behavior. They don’t belong in human homes, full stop.”
said Dr. Clifford said he was able to keep about 24 of the octopus hatchlings alive, with the help of a friend who kept them on a property he owned. Even in the wild, scientists say, very few hatchlings survive.
said Dr. Clifford said he hired an intern to contact aquariums and research institutions to ask if anyone wanted to take the hatchlings. At least two have expressed interest, he said.
“I don’t know that we are fully prepared for any of these challenges, but the hope is to get as many back home as possible,” he said. “And what we can’t do, we will find a way to keep them alive and be responsible. It’s not a real concrete plan, but we’re doing good so far.
