Staff at the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan in Shimonoseki, Japan noticed something unsettling while its facility was closed to the public for renovations this past winter. Its star attraction, an ocean sunfish, seemed rather distraught.
First off, the sunfish had a digestion problem, and then later started exhibiting aggressive behavior, intentionally slamming itself into the side of its tank. The keepers were concerned with what they were seeing, until one keen worker suggested that the fish might simply be missing its guests.
To test out this theory, the aquarium set up human cutouts around the glass tank, to simulate what a usual day open to the public would look like from the fish’s perspective. Lo and behold, the sunfish returned to its usual self. It began to eat full meals again and stopped slamming its body into the side of the glass.
“I knew [the sunfish] was looking at us when we were placing [the cutouts], but I never thought it would start eating the next day,” Moe Miyazaki, an aquarist at the facility, told the Associated Press.
Miyazaki noted that staff were “skeptical” about the plan, so they may well have been a little shocked when the sunfish began to act its normal self.
Kaikyokan Aquarium is set to open to the public again in the summer, and by all accounts it expects the sunfish to continue being its biggest draw. Sunfishes are among the largest bony fish in the world (they can reach 10 feet) and have a unique flat, disc-like shape that clearly draws a crowd.
I don’t know about you, but I’m now deeply invested in this specific sunfish. Let’s hope the cutouts keep the little rascal happy over the next few months.
The post Japanese Aquarium Uses Cardboard Humans to Keep a Fish Company appeared first on VICE.
