We have watched for years as Japan has slid deeper and deeper into cratering fertility rates; the rest of the world is headed that way too, but Japan's descent is more shocking than most:
This had unsurprisingly led to a loneliness epidemic there:
But nobody expected it to be this bad:
An aquarium in Japan is using cardboard cutouts of visitors to cheer up its lonely resident sunfish who stopped eating after the building closed to real-life visitors.
Though solitary creatures, sunfish "are often stimulated by their curiosity." They are "harmless to people and are known to fearlessly approach divers in the wild."
Apparently having human tourists away from his tank was bothering the sunfish at Kaikyokan Aquarium in Shimonosek:
He was feeling a little unwell right after the closure. 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?" I was 99% sure that couldn't be the case, but I stuck up some staff uniforms as a last resort.
And then...the next day, he felt better!
For real — that's what they did:
And it really did seem to work:
That'll warm up even the coldest fish heart!
The fish "had gone on a hunger strike once the aquarium closed," but once the fake cardboard humans were installed, it "bounced back with renewed vigor."
Not sure this'll solve the loneliness problem in the rest of the country, though!
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