Japanese park shocks visitors by freezing sea creatures into ice skating rink
In a shockingly insensitive display, Japan’s “Space World” theme park froze hundreds of sea creatures, including fish and crabs, into the ice of a skating rink. The the park says the animals were already dead when purchased, but outraged visitors, revolted by the sight, weren’t aware of this. They took to social media to protest in large numbers, forcing a closure. The park will unfreeze the dead animals, and they will be used as fertilizer.
It’s hard to believe, in this sensitive age, that the park’s executives didn’t anticipate the backlash. And it’s harder still to fathom why cheap plastic replicas wouldn’t have sufficed. What were these executives thinking? The public, particularly those involved with social media, are increasingly aware of animal cruelty, and sensitive to the appearance of such cruelty, whether or not abuse has actually occurred. And, after all, it’s very easy to share one’s outrage on Facebook or Twitter.
Watch video of Space World’s macabre ice rink exhibit (CNN)
Photo: By ja:User:Sanjo (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
