An aquarium in Japan is cheering up a lonely sunfish by taping photographs of human faces to the animal’s tank during a temporary closure.
Via the BBC, the Kaikyokan aquarium in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi prefecture has attached images of human faces to a row of clothing, and more clothing on hangers, in front of the fish’s tank.
The move was a “last resort” to remedy the sunfish’s recent health issues, which a staff member believed was prompted by loneliness during the aquarium’s closure for refurbishment, the attraction said on X earlier this month.
“It seems to be in good health again,” the aquarium wrote on X the following day.
After the Kaikyokan aquarium closed for renovation in December, the sunfish stopped eating jellyfish and started rubbing its body against the tank, the Mainichi Shimbun reported.
Sunfish “in good health again”
Staff member Mai Kato told the publication that the sunfish “would swim up to visitors when they approached the tank”.
Although some aquarium employees suspected the sunfish had parasites or digestive issues, one member of the team said the animal may have been lonely without visitors.
The sunfish in the Kaikyokan aquarium is about 80cm long and weighs nearly 30kg.
Back in 2020 during the pandemic, an aquarium in Tokyo asked people to video chat with lonely eels.
In 2023, the world’s loneliest lion, Ruben, was returned to his natural habitat in Africa after he was abandoned in a private zoo in Armenia for five years.
The 15-year-old lion, who was so lonely that he lost his roar, was left behind at the zoo when it closed. His roar has since returned.
