Tokyo "Santa" Rides Shark In Disturbing Aquarium Act
During the holiday season at the Sunshine International Aquarium in Tokyo, a diver dresses as Santa Claus plunges into the shark tank twice a day to put on a show for visitors. He even grabs onto a passing shark, which seems to go stiff and fall to the bottom of the tank the moment he grabs it.
#Santa Claus hugs a Zebra shark as he swims inside a Tokyo aquarium. Photo by Shizuo Kambayashi via @APpic.twitter.com/jEa8wLd8pq
While visitors gush about how much fun they're kids are having, we can't help but being reminded of the bizarre and dangerous practice of "shark-riding," a trend that has been the subject of countless YouTube videos in recent months. As Dawn Williams over at Slate summed it up, this is almost certainly just a bad idea:
So what is driving this new surge involving ordinary folks riding sharks? My best guess is either alcohol or an unfounded sense that sharks are one step away from being pets. Either way, it's a dangerous game that will most certainly end badly for some unfortunate soul down the road.
Williams points out that, in the rare case that the shark might attack the person riding it, the shark would certainly earn a "bad rap" -- not a very good thing for sharks' public image. Not to mention the animal welfare issues involved with attaching the weight of a human body onto a shark.