I imagine most aquariums probably don’t even consider posting a sign that says, “Do not pull the fish out the water to take pictures with them, because those fish need that water to live,” because, you know, most common aquarium-goers know that you don’t pull the fish out of the water to take pictures with them.
Like, I think maybe my mom taught me that, but if not, it’s just knowledge I pretty easily inferred as I grew up. That wasn’t some concept as dense and unapproachable as gravitational waves as they pertain to cosmic inflation. No, it’s a pretty basic notion. Don’t do things in the museum that could kill the things in the museum.
But an aquarium in Shanghai needed to remind its patrons not to kill the fish after some of its patrons killed the fish.
Shanghai’s newest museum has been forced to issue a stern warning to visitors after a starfish was killed and a model was broken just days after it opened.
Chinese media said the starfish died after it was pulled out of a pool by visitors who wanted to snap pictures.
[Said Gu Jieyan, director of the display service department] ‘Some visitors who took starfish and fish out of the pool for taking pictures. We asked them to put them back and taught them how to properly touch the sea creatures.’
Man. Like I said, that’s common sense. Although it also might be the least of the museum’s worries, because it appears they are inundated with unruly visitors.
Photos have also emerged online of a child urinating in a display, TimeOut Shanghai reported.
Come on, patrons of Shanghai’s Natural History Museum. Don’t kill the fish. Don’t pee on the fish. This isn’t hard.