2025 'year of the octopus' say Wildlife Trust

Forget the year of the snake - the Wildlife Trust say 2025 has been the year of the octopus, as their numbers have massively increased on the south coast of England.

Record numbers of the intelligent sea-dwelling creatures have been spotted on beaches in Devon and Cornwall, the charity said in their annual Marine Life Review.

The species of octopus people had been spotting were octopus vulgaris, a Mediterranean species native to the UK.

However they're rarely seen, as their numbers are usually so low.

The Wildlife Trust recorded a whopping 1500% increase in sightings from Penzance to South Devon this year.

Matt Slater, a marine conservation officer at Cornwall Wildlife Trust told the Guardian newspaper: "When we added up the numbers, approximately 233,000 octopuses were caught in UK waters this year – that's a huge increase from what you would normally expect."

Octopus numbers go up and down quite regularly, and when they increase it's known as a 'bloom'.

But this year's bloom has been unusually big - the last time one of this size was recorded was in 1950.

Weather has a big part to play in creating the right conditions for a bloom, and the very mild winter at the start of the year followed by a warm mating season in spring was just what the octopuses needed.

And the mild winter we're having currently could mean a second bloom in 2026.

The good octopus news wasn't the only story worth celebrating from 2025 according to the Wildlife Trust's report: