Complaining About the Aquarium

Here are some fish I saw in Paris' aquarium last year. The aquarium itself is tragic, a strangely dark, hollow, dusty place. And they had a flimsy collaboration with Sanrio going on at the time, which meant seeing some My Melody decals near the fish. Okay. Wow.

Looks great.

Fish themselves are always fascinating little creatures - I love when they're bioluminescent or when they look like little old men - but the enclosures were largely small and sad. You could believe this place was abandoned if not for the tourists clopping around sombrely and the few staff clad in dull black aquarium t-shirts looking vaguely bored. 

I have never really regretted visiting an aquarium before, although Japanese zoos and aquariums are pretty sad, you can tell immediately that the country has low animal welfare standards, but this one was simply crap. At one point I went to the toilet and found thick layers of dust in there. Can we clean our toilets please? Vous nettoyez les toilettes?

Fish and sea creatures are spectacular and weird. Their non-mammalian qualities and their fun colours make them really delightful by default, but in this dingy zone, I think I've come closer to knowing what it was like to peruse a Victorian freakshow. Don't these fish deserve better? It boasts "the largest collection of jellyfish outside Japan" according to its website. You really wouldn't know to look at it.

It used to look like this... wow.

This place used to be a knobbly Georgian grotto. Now it's a black plastic box with Hello Kitty peeling from the wall and a sad turtle. Stop it. Surely we can do better than this?