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Record numbers of sightings of one of the world\u2019s most intelligent invertebrates over the summer have led the Wildlife Trusts to declare 2025 \u201cthe year of the octopus\u201d in its annual review of Britain\u2019s seas.<\/p>\n
A mild winter followed by an exceptionally warm spring prompted unprecedented numbers of Mediterranean octopuses to take up residence along England\u2019s south coast, from Penzance in Cornwall to south Devon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scale of the catch [recorded by local fishers] was of the order of about 13 times what we would normally expect in Cornish waters,\u201d said Matt Slater, a marine conservation officer at Cornwall Wildlife Trust. \u201cWhen we added up the numbers, approximately 233,000 octopuses were caught in UK waters this year \u2013 that\u2019s a huge increase from what you would normally expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Octopus walking by Jenny Kent<\/span>Octopus walking by Jenny Kent<\/span><\/p>\n The common or Mediterranean octopus, Octopus vulgaris<\/em>, is native to UK waters but ordinarily in such small numbers it is rarely seen. A sudden increase in the population \u2013 a bloom \u2013 is caused by a combination of a mild winter followed by a warm breeding season in the spring. The ideal conditions meant that more of the larvae of the common octopus were likely to survive, said Slater, possibly in part fuelled by the large numbers of spider crabs that have also been recorded along the south coast in recent years.<\/p>\n The last time an octopus bloom of the size observed in 2025 was recorded was 1950, with records from the UK\u2019s Marine Biological Association showing the last bloom recorded prior to that was in 1900.<\/p>\n The huge numbers of octopuses along the south coast meant they could be easily spotted in shallow waters for the first time in recent history. Video footage from divers shows octopuses gathering in groups \u2013 they are usually solitary \u2013 as well as \u201cwalking\u201d along the seabed on the tips of their limbs. One was even filmed grabbing at an underwater camera.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first time I dived off the Lizard peninsula this year I saw five octopuses,\u201d said Slater. \u201cAnd these are big. There are two types of octopus in UK waters. There is the curled octopus, which is quite small, only getting to about the size of a football, but these common octopuses can be up to a metre and a half wide.\u201d<\/p>\n Another mild winter going into 2026 meant it was possible there could be a second bloom next year, said Slater, because historically, under these conditions, the blooms have repeated themselves for two consecutive years.<\/p>\n Octopus grabbing a camera by Matthew Bradshaw<\/span>Octopus grabbing a camera by Matthew Bradshaw<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHowever, it is unlikely, based on past events, that it will go on for a long time,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the sea keeps giving us surprises at the moment so it\u2019s quite an unpredictable situation.\u201d<\/p>\n The Wildlife Trusts noted some of the other \u201csurprises, successes and joyful moments\u201d around the UK coastline included a record number of grey seals observed by the Cumbria Wildlife Trust, as well as record numbers of puffins on Skomer, an island off the coast of Wales famed for the birds.<\/p>\n Other wildlife was recorded in unusual places. A volunteer with Shoresearch, the Wildlife Trusts\u2019 national citizen science survey programme, recorded the first Capellinia fustifera<\/em> sea slug in Yorkshire, a 12mm mollusc that resembles a gnarly root vegetable and is usually found in the south-west. In addition, a variable blenny, a Mediterranean fish, <\/strong>was discovered off the coast of Sussex for the first time. Populations had previously been limited to the West Country.<\/p>\n <\/span>A group of grey seals in South Walney, Cumbria.<\/span> Photograph: Gemma de Gouveia\/Wildlife Trusts<\/p>\n Not everything was good news, though. \u201cThe year was bookended by environmental disasters,\u201d said Ruth Williams, head of marine conservation at the Wildlife Trusts. \u201c[There was] the North Sea tanker collision in March and in November the release of tonnes of biobeads off the Sussex coast. Our Wildlife Trusts staff and volunteers are making huge efforts to protect and restore our shorelines.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Record numbers of sightings of one of the world\u2019s most intelligent invertebrates over the summer have led the Wildlife Trusts to declare 2025 \u201cthe year of the octopus\u201d in its annual review of Britain\u2019s seas. A mild winter followed by an exceptionally warm spring prompted unprecedented numbers of Mediterranean octopuses to take up residence along<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[3710,2456,337,1785,5076,11000,1099,122,11469,1569],"class_list":{"0":"post-38596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-coast","9":"tag-englands","10":"tag-life","11":"tag-marine","12":"tag-numbers","13":"tag-octopus","14":"tag-record","15":"tag-south","16":"tag-spotted","17":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}