Marine Life at the Shikoku Aquarium (Summer 2024)

Yesterday was our annual (?) visit to the Shikoku Aquarium.

First of all, if you’re not familiar with zoos, aquariums, and other places displaying animals in Japan, be warned. Those are not for the faint of heart. Very unfortunately, in Japan, such places are still designed around the visitors’ entertainment and not for the animals’ well-being.

Animal rights are not really a thing in Japan.

Those places are for people’s entertainment. They have absolutely zero educational or preservation value. Some animals live in horrible conditions. To the point that I avoid zoos altogether nowadays in this country. A thing that makes me really sad. It’s my parents bringing me to zoos all over Europe as a kid that taught me to love and respect animals. And I just can’t do that with my kids here.

However, it’s summer vacation, the kids have homework, and kids in elementary school always have reports to make about the places they’ve been to during their vacation. Except that back in the day, summers could be fun, kids could do things. Nowadays, summers are hellish and kids spend it indoors for safety reasons (the temperature didn’t go below 35°C for the past month or so, and with the heat index, the temperature felt was well above 40°C) So the number of places we can go to is very limited. The Shikoku Aquarium is one of them (especially yesterday the first rainy day in more than a month, it was ONLY 29°C, can you imagine?)

 

The place is really designed as an exhibit hall when you think about it. Most signs look like this:

The first time I saw it, I thought it was a bad translation. They’re very common here, automatic translators are loved by both big and small businesses and the Japanese ones are pretty bad most of the time. But, no, it’s not. I’m even surprised they included the Latin name of the animal.

It gives you a good idea of the place’s philosophy. They’re showing you “views” or scenes. I should have taken a picture, but some smaller tanks even have frames around them, like paintings would.

 

I don’t have the courage to show you the mammals living conditions. Of course, they have a dolphin show, where six or seven dolphins live in what basically is a swimming pool. The sea lion and the seals (not together) even have less space.

At least most fish and invertebrates don’t need space to live a decent life, but some of them really don’t have enough either.

So, I only took a handful of pictures (I took more last year, they may or may not end up online one of these days)

The sea cucumbers have a special place in my heart because they have a special place in my dear friend Greg’s heart, I haven’t seen him in 14 years or so, and I don’t know when I’ll see him next, so I take pictures of them every time I see some.

 

A crab in a very dark (and small) tank . I guess it’s nocturnal, and hopefully, a species that’s pretty static.

 

 

I’m not sure if the hammerhead sharks have sufficient space to live a long and healthy life either. Their tank is designed to be seen from below (from above too, but it’s never been open in the three times I’ve been to the place)

 

The aquarium has an interesting collection of jellyfish. We need to learn more about them, as they’ll soon be the only animal life left in the ocean.

I have a soft spot for moray eels.

These two are meme material, don’t you think?

 

For some reason, the place also has three contiguous spaces with very interesting paintings and animated visual art. It’s my son’s favorite part of the aquarium (more than the animals.) I’ll try to show more of it one day (I filmed and took more pictures during a previous visit, but I have yet to put them online.

 

I guess that’s all for now, see you soon with something probably completely different.