Shedd Aquarium in Chicago

I’m not a fan of aquariums. Small or big aquariums.

But, that doesn’t mean I don’t find anything valuable in having aquariums, like Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.

When a friend of mine left for his backpacking adventure in South America, he asked me if I’d be interested to take his aquarium (of course, with fish). I said, no. What else do you expect me to say?

I feel their pain to be caged in a glass with artificial stuff.

Shedd Aquarium, I get it, is important to educate and entertain us about the world under the sea and its inhabitants. The aquarium is our connection to other living things. Back in my primary and high school days, we didn’t have field trips to the zoo or aquariums. We learned about animals by having one in our backyard and by going to the river in summertime. Growing up in the third world has its perks, too. The rest of the animal world, we learned it from picture books.

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But, anyway, Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, no doubt, does a good job in treating their animals with respect–but not with a good room to breath and be a fish. I said that as an observation, not as a criticism. Ok, maybe, partly both.

I feel for the anaconda that’s caged in an aquarium as big as my queen-size bed.

I feel for the school of fat, huge fish whose world is just within an aquarium that’s as big as, what else, my queen-size bed.

Some aquariums are even smaller than my cradle and there are a lot of fish in them. Can they not release some of them to where they belong or design a bigger glass playground for these sea creatures? It’s heart-breaking to see them “elbowing” each other. Give them a way bigger tank to swim “freely”. It’s crowded in there. It’s like they’re living in a slum of the underworld while on display while their bosses are enjoying a good life.

Life in captivity is no better than dying young but living your life free in the open, wide arms of the sea.