Video Of Penguins At Japanese Zoo Refusing To Eat Cheaper Fish Has The Internet In Stitches

Penguins at a Japanese aquarium have achieved internet fame—and you won't believe the reason why.

The internet has long been a place to find cute animal videos. Whether it's a cat playing a keyboard, a monkey in a diaper, or a baby sea lion learning to swim, the internet houses an unfathomable amount of hilarious and cute videos for animal lovers around the globe.

The newest in a long line of these delightful videos shows penguins in a Japanese zoo being rather picky over their taste in cuisine and leaving social media users basking in hilarity.

The viral video sensation began at the notable Hakone-en Japanese aquarium.

The Hakone-en aquarium is home to over 30,000 animals and fish, and draws visitors from all over the world.

In the face of the current global inflation, however, the aquarium has had to find ways to cut costs in order to stay afloat.

One way he aquarium sought to cut costs was to begin buying cheaper animal feed.

Thus, instead of feeding the penguins of the aquarium delicious Japanese horse mackerel, or "aji," the aquarium began buying common mackerel, or "saba."

As the price of aji in Japan was risen a whopping 20-30%, switching to feeding the penguins saba should save the aquarium a good deal of money, right?

Well, as it turns out, the penguins can taste—and even smell—the difference between the fish, and needless to say, they aren't impressed. In fact, both the penguins and otters who have been switched to the cheaper saba have been turning up their noses at the inferior fish after just a sniff.

News outlet ANN released a video discussing the aquarium's dilemma, and featured footage of the dapper birds refusing the food. The video has since gone viral as social media users are howling over the hilarity of the footage.

Watch the video here:

youtu.be

In an interview with CNN affiliate TV Asahi, head aquarium keeper Hiroki Shimamoto said:

"They take it into their mouths at first, but then they decide they don't like it and drop it."

"They sense something is off."

In order to make the saba more enticing to the animals, the aquarium staff tried feeding them the saba with a bit of the tasty aji mixed in.

Shimamoto said:

"Ideally, they would like to have a full aji, but they are patiently eating [the mix of] mackerel."

Twitter users are in stitches over the hilarious clip.

The aquarium has been cutting costs wherever possible in order to avoid raising the cost of admission, Shimamoto said.

"We could raise the admission fee to the aquarium and fix this issue, but we would like to do our best to keep our facility a comfortable place for our guests to visit. We do not plan on raising admission prices."

The animals seem to have begrudgingly accepted this offering—for now.