San Antonio Aquarium Octopus Incident at San Antonio Aquarium

M

MarkinTex

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
On July 14, 2025 a giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) in a touch tank wrapped its tentacles around a 6 year old boy's arm, and would not let go for about 5 minutes, while employees used ice packs to distract the octopus. After the child's mother reached out to the San Antonio Aquarium about the incident with no response, she posted TikTok videos about it that went viral. The aquarium then released a statement that the mother disputes the truthfulness of.

The San Antonio Aquarium is owned by Crystal Covino, the wife of Ammon Covino, of the infamously terrible SeaQuest aquarium chain.


New revelations stir controversy in San Antonio Aquarium octopus scandal
 
It's fascinating that an American aquarium would house a Giant Pacific Octopus in an open-topped exhibit in the first place. Those are quite the sucker marks on the young boy's arm!

It's too bad that this facility is always in the news for something controversial, although in truth when I visited in 2015 I was not impressed with the aquarium. There was a walk-through enclosure with at least 50 Green Iguanas back then and everything was very low-budget.
 
Octopi are such good escape artists it would seem like they would not work in a touch tank, so on the one hand I want to doubt that the aquarium would really have one in a touch tank...

...but on the other hand, the aquarium's explanation doesn't make sense - they don't deny that the boy came in contact with an octopus, and while they claim it wasn't in a touch tank, their description of the enclosure doesn't make it sound like a disclosure designed securely keep an octopus in, so even if the octopus wasn't in a touch tank, they still chose an enclosure that was not adequate to keep the octopus and people separate. Why would they choose such a design unless it was for a touch tank? Plus the whole comment about someone having to reach up over the tank and then 24 inches down into it - the average 6 year old child's arm is only going to be about 8 inches long. Besides, this is a Covino facility, with their track record, they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.
 
biggest_dreamer said:
Is it common for touch tanks to house an octopus? I generally walk past them, but in my experience it's usually some combination of rays, catsharks, horseshoe crabs, and echinoderms. My gut reaction says that of course an octopus would be a disaster in the making, but I guess what do I know?
Click to expand...

No it is not, for two main reasons. Octopi are notorious escape artists and most of them will be out of your average touch tank in about 30 seconds. The other biggest reason is exactly why this thread exists - they are quite capable of causing injury, especially a giant pacific. It's lucky the boy wasn't bitten in addition to the sucker bruises.

MarkinTex said:
Besides, this is a Covino facility, with their track record, they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Click to expand...

Yeah the owners have a pretty poor record of safety protocols and animal welfare. The photos I saw of the exhibit showed the top of the tank at about 4.5 feet high with absolutely nothing to prevent the public from doing whatever they pleased. The photo of the employee working to get the child separated from the octopus completely debunks the aquarium's defense - the octopus is literally at the top of the glass with multiple arms over the outside edge, and it certainly does not look to be 2 feet down to the water. Both the employee and mom could clearly easily reach the water by the picture. How they've been managing to keep the octopus in the tank and people out of it I've really no idea.
 
I’ve seen an octopus in an open top tank one time at the Gulf Specimen Aquarium. It was a fairly small specimen and guests had no real access to the tank as I recall. I’m guessing it wasn’t a long term resident given the nature of the facility.

I cannot believe you would give a GPO a “get out of tank free” card. Lord knows they don’t need it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top