Recently, an aquarium in Japan decided to save a few bucks by switching to cheaper fish, but it became clear their culinarily sophisticated penguins were having none of it!
The decision o save money has not since gone down well with the penguins ,who are seen in a now-viral video shaking and turning their beaks in disgust at an employee offering the discounted fish.
Before the sudden rising prices, the Hakone-en aquarium in South Japan, home to over 32,000 creatures, including seals and sharks, used to provide their otters and penguins with “aji,” which is a Japanese horse mackerel (and apparently the penguin’s favorite).
However, today the aquarium, since running into financial difficulty, revealed that the price of aji has gone up between 20 to 30 percent since the previous year.
So to reduce costs, management switched from the usual “aji” to a cheaper fish, a regular mackerel called “saba,” back in May.
However, the menu change has not gone over well with several animals as staff had to find innovative ways to coax them into eating the lower-quality fish, reports CNN. It appears the otters and penguins were more willing to eat the mackerel when it was mixed in with their beloved aji.
While it was tougher to get the penguins to eat, manager Daiki Shimamoto announced that the aquarium would not force their birds to eat food they didn’t want.
“All of the animals at the aquarium are family and we do our best to keep them healthy,” the manager declared. “We would like to have as many people (as possible) come and visit Hakone and enjoy our animals.”
Plus, the facility said that their penguins and otters choose the type of fish they wish to eat, and they will do everything they can to accommodate their wishes.
Sadly, the rising cost of food isn’t the only issue the aquarium is currently facing. The facility is also trying to save electricity by reducing the number of circulating pumps and lowering how many times the filter tank is cleaned.
Shimamoto explained:
“We could raise the admission fee to the aquarium and fix this issue, but we would like to do our best to keep our facility a comfortable place for our guests to visit. We do not plan on raising admission prices.”
You can watch the adorable video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCl16qi58UI
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Sources:
- “Penguins at aquarium are refusing to eat cheaper fish, video shows” Vt. Asiya Ali. July 7, 2022.