PORT ANGELES — The public will get to help name Feiro Marine Life Center’s new giant Pacific octopus with online voting set to begin today.
Beginning at 9 a.m., the public can vote for one of five names for the eight-armed denizen of the deep by visiting Feiro’s website at www.tinyurl.com/PDN-octopus.
Voting will continue through 5 p.m. Friday. The name receiving the most votes will be selected.
The five names nominated for the octopus — a female estimated to be younger than two years old — were not made public Sunday.
They were being kept secret, even from volunteers and employees at the marine science center, said Disa Wilson, staff naturalist.
According to staff members, the highly intelligent creature has settled in well at Feiro since her capture and arrival Feb. 29.
“Housing a giant Pacific octopus provides an important educational opportunity to talk about octopuses in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and their unique adaptations,” Melissa Williams, executive director said in an announcement of the octopus naming poll.
‘Adopt an Octopus’
Feiro has also launched the “Adopt an Octopus” fundraising campaign to replace the loss of $20,000 in annual funding from the city of Port Angeles, according to the announcement.
Donors have the choice between a special digital image and information on the octopus, a hand-knit octopus or to have their name displayed above the octopus habitat for the next year.
For more information on the Adopt an Octopus program, phone 360-417-6254, email info@feiromarinelifecenter.org or see feiromarinelifecenter.org.
The new octopus has replaced Ursula, an octopus released Jan. 11 in Freshwater Bay, in the octopus tank at the marine life center at 315 N. Lincoln St., on City Pier.
The giant Pacific octopus is the mascot and a symbol of the marine science center, which features the creature on shirts and toys sold in its gift store.
Start small
Newly hatched octopuses start life at about the size of a grain of rice, according to Feiro’s announcement.
They will drift as plankton until they are large enough to settle to the bottom and consume crustaceans, fish, bivalves, snails and other octopuses.
A female giant Pacific octopus doubles its body weight every 80 days or so in order to get large enough to reach maturity and mate.
Both male and female giant Pacific octopuses can reach about 16 feet across and live three to five years. They breed once, then die.
The marine center holds a license to keep a wild octopus and is required to return that octopus to the area where it was caught when it approaches breeding age and condition.
The center’s past five octopuses — Octavia, Ariel, Opal, Obecka and Ursula — have all been female by happenstance. Like most of her predecessors, she was caught in Freshwater Bay.
Obecka and Ursula were both named by members of the public — Obecka’s naming rights were auctioned at the Fish on the Fence Gala, and Ursula was named by a public poll in the Peninsula Daily News.
Winter hours at the center are noon to 5 p.m. daily, and admission is by donation.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
