A Giant Pacific Octopus interacts with a caretaker
While Meghan Holst was completing her MS degree in our lab she was also working on a long-running project developing an objective welfare assessment tool for giant Pacific octopuses held in public aquaria, with the goal of improving decision-making around end-of-life care and euthanasia. Her work was published late last year in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, and recently has been featured on the Oregon State University news page (link to the news story and interview with the authors is here). Meghan graduated from the MS program here in 2020 and is currently working toward her PhD at UC Davis, and also continues her work at the Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco.
It’s great to see the continued success of the Crook Lab’s outstanding student alumni!