Inflation and rising food prices can also affect our animal friends, not just us humans. But faced with rising fish prices, these proud penguins and putting their flipper down. They live at Hakone-en Aquarium in Kanagawa, Japan, where they’re typically fed aji, a fatty Japanese horse mackerel. But due to rising fish prices and less of this fish being caught recently, their caretakers got them saba, a cheaper mackerel.
“But mackerel is mackerel, right?”, you might think, as a common human. To a discerning pescetarian, like these penguins, the difference is enough to go on a hunger strike. The caretakers started subbing in 10% of the cheaper fish and slowly increased it… But eventually, enough was enough and the penguins started giving them the cold shoulder. The caretakers would hand them one of the cheaper mackerels and they’d turn their beaks away in disgust. They even try putting the fish directly in their mouths, only for them to spit them out. Some penguins were fine with the cheap stuff, but the ones on strike did win and got their fav gourmet mackerel back on the menu.