Fish never saw it coming when they were moved into their new home in a Japanese amusement park. Space World, which is in south-west Japan has bowed to public pressure to close their skating rink as it came to light that they had frozen thousands of fish into the ice.

Although the fish were bought from a public market and were already dead by the time they were put in the ice, outrage online that described the rink as ‘immoral’ and ‘cruel’ has influenced the decision to close the rink. Fish were used to spell out ‘hello’ in the ice, as well as being made into an arrow so that skaters knew which direction to go.

Although the photo above shows stingrays, the park has pointed out the rays and whale sharks that are in the ice are only photos. Space World’s website had touted that the rink was the first in the world to allow guests to ‘glide across the sea’. However, in a statement on Sunday, the park announced it was closing down the rink.

“Misunderstandings spread on the internet that the fish were frozen while they were still alive, but that was not the case,”  said the spokesperson for the park. “We should have explained more.”

The internet strikes again with its misinformation! In its defence, if I saw a photo with ‘hello’ spelled out from fish bodies, I would assume that they had been frozen instead of being placed there so I could glide across the sea. Gotta love Japan. Let this be a lesson as well: don’t believe everything you read!