‘Lonely’ Sunfish Comforted by Cardboard Cutouts of People After Aquarium Closes Due to Renovations

Mar. 15, 2025

An aquarium in Japan is getting creative when it comes to cheering up its fish!

The Kaikyokan Aquarium in Shimonoseki, Japan, which isclosed as it undergoes renovations, revealed in apost on Xthat its staff had to think out of the box to help one of its sunfish struggling with the change.

“[The sunfish] was feeling a little unwell right after the closure,” the aquarium further noted in a translated post on X.

The aquarium noted on X, “We didn’t know the cause and tried various things to deal with it, but one of the staff members said, ‘Maybe he’s lonely without the visitors?' ”

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An aquarium with staff photos on a tank to cheer up a lonely Sunfish at the Kaikyokan Aquarium in Shimonoseki Japan.Jam Press

Jam Press

“And then … the next day, [the sunfish] felt better!” the aquarium said in a translated post. “Recently, it has been [swimming] in front of the tank and waving its [fins], so it seems to be in good health again!”

“Honestly, [we] can’t believe it,” the aquarium continued. “But the one currently on display is very curious and would come over [to the glass] when there were visitors, so it may have been in poor health when [the visitors] suddenly disappeared.”

The aquarium noted on its website that the renovations began on Dec. 1, 2024, and that the sunfish tank, as well as the other fish tanks, were scheduled to reopen in six months around summer 2025.

According toNational Geographic, sunfish “are harmless to people” and “can be very curious.” It noted that in the wild, the creatures “will often approach divers” and that the sunfish population is considered “vulnerable” as they can get caught in “drift gill nets.”

The Kaikyokan Aquarium isn’t the first aquarium in Japan to use alternative methods to keep the fish happy. Tokyo’s Sumida Aquarium came up with a similar solution to keep its 300 spotted garden eels active during the Covid lockdown in 2020 when they asked for volunteers to FaceTime the creatures and encourage them to come out of their hiding places in the tank, perCNN.

source: people.com