
Japanese aquarium urges public to video-chat with eels - behoove
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/japanese-aquarium-urges-public-to-video-chat-eels-who-are-forgetting-humans-exist
======
con
Here’s the Japanese news post by the Sumida Aquarium, which includes the Email
addresses to FaceTime the eels:

[https://www.sumida-aquarium.com/news/details/2236/](https://www.sumida-
aquarium.com/news/details/2236/)

A shame that The Guardian’s article did not include a backlink to it.

~~~
DarthGhandi
It's absurdly common with news articles. They never link the
stats/paper/organisation. I often wonder about the amount of collective time
spent by individuals simply trying to find the data summarised in an article.

For all the lamenting about the media's decline there's plenty of amateur
blogs out there that manage to link their sources when writing an article.

~~~
goostavos
This is my biggest pet peeve with news in general. Why does a high school
paper have more rigor in terms of citations than the average post from a major
news organization? It honestly drives me crazy.

How in the world can a majority of major news organizations not overcome the
hurdle of... adding links to what they're covering..?

It makes digesting political news all but impossible.

~~~
montebicyclelo
I suspect there is motivation for a news organisation not to send users away
from their website.

~~~
ekianjo
Probably because content outside of news websites is a lot more worth a read.

~~~
remarkEon
And often, but not always, actually contradicts the headline and/or the
content of the "news" article itself.

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rjtobin
Although I think this is wonderful, I wonder is there a non-public outreach
reason for not just showing pre-recorded videos of people?

I’m also curious about how well these eels can perceive screens. Some animals
seem to be able to process things on a screen while others seem to totally
ignore it. Is there some biological difference here, maybe the frequencies of
light emitted by a TV/monitor being designed for human eyes?

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capableweb
> Some animals seem to be able to process things on a screen while others seem
> to totally ignore it

In my experience, it's more about the particular individual of animal rather
than broadly "all eels can see screens", at least that's what I experience
with my dogs. One of them ignore screens and seemingly can't see / don't want
to see what's on the screen, even if prompted to look at it. The other one
watches TV with me, as soon as I'm watching something. And if there is
something appearing on the screen resembling an animal, she tries to scare
them away with barks. Humans on TV is fine, and she follows them, but birds,
dogs or any other animal is an enemy according to her. Even animated animals
are recognized as animals for her, unless they are too abstract.

Watching BoJack Horseman was an interesting experience, to see where she would
react vs not. Seems most animals/humans in that show are fine, unless they are
really behaving like animals, then it's not fine.

~~~
t0mas88
My younger cat also completely ignores televisions and the mirror, just
doesn't look at it any longer than a regular wall. The older one reacts to the
"cat in the mirror" and also watches TV. Even goes as far as to go look at the
other side of the wall that the TV is on if she sees something on TV she wants
to hunt/eat.

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pvaldes
Aquariums in Japan are simply awesome. One of each five aquariums in the world
are there. This means that there is a permanent competition for public's eyes
and the risk to the people forgetting about a particular installation and
favouring other.

The direct translation of this article for me is: Aquariums are expensive to
maintain, especially if the public expects a high level of excellence. If your
bussiness depend on massive loads of people and suddenly this is not possible
anymore by the current situation, you have a problem. Some systems will
struggle after two-three months of sudden lack of income. Either they are
trying to monetize remote viewings or, if coronavirus keeps pushing, "Adopt an
eel" campaign will most probably follow.

Both are reasonable solutions to a problem, of course, as long as people
remain informed if their video-chat data are being monetized somehow.

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zuhayeer
“I never regretted my Android phone this much before” one Twitter user wrote

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rabboRubble
Okay never more irritated to not have the contact details! Did I miss them
somewhere in the article?

~~~
yreg
Article with facetime contacts:

[https://www.sumida-aquarium.com/news/details/2236/](https://www.sumida-
aquarium.com/news/details/2236/)

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GPUboy
Maybe this reaction is natural and good. Perhaps they are in a worse state
when people are constantly interrupting their lives?

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hestefisk
I’d like to show them my hovercraft.

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l1ghthouse
“I never regretted my Android phone this much before” :P

