A space-themed park in Japan has apologised after freezing thousands of fish, and crabs into an ice skating rink as part of a winter attraction.
Space World, in Fukuoka, normally features rides and displays about, well, space. But it recently opened its 'Freezing Port' attraction, which attracted a frosty response on social media - particularly when the park posted a photo of a frozen fish on Facebook, captioned: "I'm d..d..drowning…It h…h..hurts…"
"You have no soul to plan such an event," an ex-fan responded.
"Why is it fun to skate over the frozen?" asked another who just couldn't let it go.
Space World at first said it wouldn't close the attraction, because visitors - especially children - were having a "particularly good time".
"We were shocked to hear the reaction as the ice skate rink was very popular since it opened two weeks ago, we had an unprecedented number of visitors," Space World manager Toshimi Takeda told CNN.
One of the Facebook posts Space World would later delete (Facebook/Space World)
Then came reports the ice rink was becoming bloody, with skaters bumping their blades into fish carcasses exposed by melting ice.
"This is the first staging for us… so we think there was a lack of experience there," a Space World public relations employee told Tokyo Reporter.
Some people thought the fish had been frozen in place while they swam, which the company said was not true. All the fish were dead before they were frozen, and had been bought from a local fish market.
"Misunderstandings spread on the internet that the fish were frozen while they were still alive, but that was not the case," the spokesperson told newspaper Asahi Shimbun. "We should have explained more."
At first Space World planned to keep the attraction open for those who weren't grossed out and horrified, but has since changed its mind.
It now plans to unfreeze the rink, hold an "appropriate religious service" for the fish, before churning them up into fertiliser.
Space World deleted all the Facebook posts it made about Freezing Port.
Newshub.
