--- title: Seattle Aquarium Stops Octopus Mating Over Cannibalism Fears description: The Seattle Aquarium cancelled its annual Valentine's Day octopus mating session out of fear that the love might devolve into cannibalism canonical: https://time.com/4224714/seattle-aquarium-octopus-mating-cancelled/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-15T14:20:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:30:02.025Z og:title: You'll Never Guess Why an Aquarium Canceled an Octopus Mating Event og:description: We humans don't have this problem og:url: https://time.com/4224714/seattle-aquarium-octopus-mating-cancelled/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: You'll Never Guess Why an Aquarium Canceled an Octopus Mating Event twitter:description: We humans don't have this problem twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # You'll Never Guess Why an Aquarium Canceled an Octopus Mating Event  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Feb 15, 2016 2:20 PM UTC  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Feb 15, 2016 2:20 PM UTC The Seattle Aquarium [cancelled its annual Valentine’s Day viewing party](http://komonews.com/news/local/aquarium-cancels-octopus-sex-act-due-to-cannibalism-concerns) of an octopus mating session out of fear that the love might devolve into cannibalism. The aquarium’s male octopus, Kong, weighs 70 pounds and is roughly twice the size of the female octopuses, who weigh 30 to 40 pounds, KOMO 4 reports. Aquarium staff will instead release Kong back into the Puget Sound on Monday afternoon, an event that will actually prolong his life for some time because an octopus dies shortly after mating. \[[_KOMO 4_](http://komonews.com/news/local/aquarium-cancels-octopus-sex-act-due-to-cannibalism-concerns)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4224714/seattle-aquarium-octopus-mating-cancelled/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4224714/seattle-aquarium-octopus-mating-cancelled/"},"headline":"You'll Never Guess Why an Aquarium Canceled an Octopus Mating Event","datePublished":"2016-02-15T14:20:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:30:02.025Z","description":"We humans don't have this problem","url":"https://time.com/4224714/seattle-aquarium-octopus-mating-cancelled/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals","Washington"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4224714/seattle-aquarium-octopus-mating-cancelled/","name":"You'll Never Guess Why an Aquarium Canceled an Octopus Mating Event"}}]}] ```