In the city of Kitakyushu, Japan, an amusement park called "Space World" was already in business since 1970.
At its heyday, the theme park had six roller coasters, as well as the "Space Eye," a 100-meter tall ferris wheel with panoramic views of the park.
Among its various attractions, one was called the "Freezing Port." Or also called the "Aquarium of Ice," the winter attraction was touted as the first of its kind.
This is because the display featured 5,000 fish and other sea creatures frozen into the floor of its ice skating rink.
The park first announced the rink in a now-deleted Facebook post with pictures of the dead creatures reportedly captioned "I am d... d... drowning, s ... s... suffocating."
Of course, it didn't take long until netizens responded, resulting in a huge backlash.
People have been commenting on the park’s Facebook Page, deliberately shaming it.
Some commented how inhumane the people at Space World have become, by making an attraction where people skate over "corpses."
Others said how they are saddened by how Space World don't value animal life that much.
Netizens also accused the park of being "disrespectful," "cruel," and in "bad taste," as many of then flooded Space World's Facebook Page with negative reviews.
According to reports, the exhibit had marine animals that included sprats, mackerel, crabs, and other shellfish. While it also had stingrays, crabs and sharks, the park explained thatthey were just enlarged photos placed beneath the ice.
All of them were embedded into the ice to spell out "hello" and also to form an arrow directing skaters across the rink.
The spokesperson tried to explain that on contrary to internet reports the park bought them alive and froze them for the sake of the rink, all the animals were already dead when they were brought in, and that all of them were bought from a wholesale, before they were frozen into the ice.
The spokesperson also defended the cause, explaining that the animals were already deemed "not fit for sale," and probably would've been thrown away.
Space World manager Toshimi Takeda was reportedly surprised by the backlash the park received on social media following a local TV broadcast on the exhibit.
"We were shocked to hear the reaction as the ice skate rink was very popular since it opened two weeks ago, we had an unprecedented number of visitors," Takeda said, saying that the rink has been closed following the backlash.
The park closed the attraction on 27 November.
Following this, the Space World announced its plans to thaw the ice to excavate all the animals it froze, and hold a memorial service for them.
The park has also apologized for this.
"We apologize to everyone who was offended by the Aquarium of Ice. We will delete related posts," it announced.
It's worth noting that Space World ceased its operations on 1 January 2018.
The notice about the closure was first delivered in 2016, not long after this frozen fish case.
