Fish Tanks

I went to an aquarium with my wife recently. It's not normally something I would do, but we were in East Tokyo, looking to escape the heat and the rain, and it was there. The small fish seemed to have ample space, and were pleasant to watch. Then came, inevitably, a much larger fish, a grouper I believe, whose presence in a relatively small tank was depressing. I wondered what the ratio was, of fish size / tank size, some threshold ratio beyond which it begins to feel very wrong. Then I saw a small shark in a much larger tank, and it felt more depressing still. It had relatively more space, and yet...

It reminded me of similar feelings I have at aviaries. The smaller aviaries are the most depressing of all, but sometimes, in London zoo for example, you see huge aviaries, populated sparsely with eagles and... other eagle-type things (I'm not an expert). The ratio of bird size to amount of space was surely acceptable. And yet... maybe it's not about the size of the bird, I thought, or the fish. Maybe it has less to do with how much space they occupy, and more to do with how much space they could occupy, given the freedom they would otherwise have in the 'natural' world.

But I don't think it's this either. When I saw the small fish flitting about in their tank, it felt 'natural' that they would be subservient to the imposed restrictions of their immediate environment. It felt as if, in the outside world, they might not necessarily be able to control a much larger space. Whereas the shark, on the other hand, would be expected to 'control' vast swathes of its water, as the eagle might 'control' vast cubits of air.

What feels wrong is not so much their lack of space, as their subservience.

The only way in which humans can be happy with witnessing this level of imposition, is through developing the impression that, like the small fish, it is somehow natural that they would be subservient to the imposed restrictions of their environment. You have to make them appear small, in every sense of the word.

So in fact there is no size ratio that matters. It is the subservience that upsets. Peaceful cohabitation is lost as soon as the glass tank, or net, or concrete barrier, is erected by the more dominant force, with restrictions placed on the free movement of those on the other side. After this, it doesn't matter how big you make the tank, or how clean the water inside.

This is something people often don't seem to fully grasp, and I can't help but feel that it affects a lot of what is going on right now. It is why I have made it my first proper post, and it is something to which I will return. Unlike the Tokyo aquarium, which was very busy and over-priced.