Handling octopuses?

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Catching and eating a fish makes you part of the food chain. Playing with a helpless animal for your own entertainment makes you a sociopath.
 
Sociopath | Define Sociopath at Dictionary.com
noun, Psychiatry. 1. a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

I guess Dolphins are sociopaths, chimps are too, if you know anything about anthropology
 
A DM . . . should be setting the example for appropriate encounters with marine life -- harassing them is not one of them.

It's so cute you think you get to provide the objective definitions of those two terms. Carry on, champ--the rest of us will do as we please.
 
Ah, so we should look to the animal kingdom as our role models.

Praying mantis females often kill and eat the males after mating. It must be an OK for us, too.

No, not hat I was referring to at all. It's just that sooooo many people seem to think that ONLY humans screw f**k with wildlife and that the animal kingdom ONLY kills for food. Perhaps it's only the more intelligent creatures who have this sadistic side to them, but then that would mean that most DM's would be nice to any octopus, puffer or starfish. As for you praying mantis, wrong exile here, she eats her mate, she doesn't kill him for fun, she just knows he won't call her later.
 
Disney had to segregate the dolphins because they were using the rays for frizzbees.

Cats happily play with animals until the animal is dead and then leave it.

People ride horses. At first it was not the horse's idea until they were trained.

It is not the pet dog's idea to sit there quietly while the master chats with a neighbor when there is a perfectly good squirrel to chase.

It is not the cats idea to be neutered. Ever seen a neutered male climb on a female and get a "why is this not working" sad look on its face? I have.

Not saying that any of this is right or not right. Just that there are lots of human/critter interactions which are not the critter's idea at the time and are done for the interests/amusement of the human. And there are a lot of similar critter/critter interactions out there.
 
I don't understand much about Hawaii. They catch and eat their octopuses, I don't know whether this is a good idea or not, maybe they have more than they need. Some think it's fine to catch and have them perform for divers, I, personally, do not think this is a good idea.

Do they mess with their turtles too, or is that not allowed? Is it OK to play with anything they can catch?

I don't understand the aquarium trade either, that may just be an economic thing for the collectors that is allowed. On my trips to Hawaii, there just weren't that many fish. Sad that this thread has become antagonistic, it was not posted for that effect.
 
The turtles here are under the protection of some federal/state law or another, and there is a hefty fine imposed for being caught bothering them (or, as some locals would like to do, eating them). Which seems a shame, because occasionally they look like they might enjoy a good scratch on the neck as my box turtles were once wont to stretch out their heads for, but most diver-turtle interaction here comes in the form of (a) clueless divers accidentally kicking a turtle they didn't see, and/or (b) turtles crashing into divers because nobody told the turtles about the no-contact law.
 
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