ACT NOW: END THE TRAP. SAVE THE OCTOPUS.
This year, we’re removing illegal traps and saving octopuses – while gathering the evidence needed to fight for a ban that ends these traps for good.
Right now, thousands of illegal plastic octopus traps sit hidden beneath the waters of northern Greece – one of the Mediterranean’s most important octopus habitats.
To an octopus, each trap looks like a safe place to shelter, or somewhere a female can guard her thousands of developing eggs. But the fishermen return, haul up the traps, and take every octopus they find inside.
Many of these illegal plastic traps are placed back on the seabed year after year, so the same destructive cycle repeats – again and again.
Octopuses are intelligent, sentient animals that feel pain and distress. Yet in their most vulnerable season, they’re taken before the next generation even has the chance to hatch.
This year, we’re not just removing traps. We’re gathering evidence to help end them.
Our crew is in Greek waters doing two things at once: hauling illegal traps from the seabed and freeing the octopuses trapped inside – and mapping the full scale of the damage, gathering the evidence needed to advocate for a ban on these traps during the three-month breeding closure.
Remove a trap, and you end one cycle. Fight for the ban, and you end them all.
YOUR SUPPORT CAN HELP END THE TRAP … BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
Last year, people like you helped achieve extraordinary results: together, supporters recovered 34,546 illegal traps and released 1,584 octopuses back into the sea. But hundreds of thousands still remain – and as long as the traps are legal to set, removing them will never be enough on its own.
That’s why this year is different. Every trap we haul up is now also evidence. Your donation funds the crew doing the difficult work at sea – locating and lifting illegal traps, checking each one for life, releasing the octopuses inside, and bringing the plastic gear ashore for recycling – and it funds the mapping and evidence that could protect these waters for every season to come.
One trap removed. One cycle ended. One step closer to a ban that ends them all. That’s what your donation makes possible.
Together, we can turn every donation into lasting protection for the Mediterranean’s octopuses – and end the trap for good.
Act now. Donate to end the trap and save the octopus.