"Hello, garden eel here:” insights from emerging humanature relations at the aquarium during COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Over one billion people worldwide were under social isolation restrictions between April and May 2020. While humans felt the weight of being isolated under lockdown, nonhuman animals accustomed to continuous human connection had minimized exposure at different animal tourism sites and institutions – such as zoos and aquariums. One interesting case comes from garden eels, which according to their caretakers, were particularly susceptible to isolation from humans and required immediate action Facetime calls with humans. In this research insight, I explore the new technologically mediated humanimal communication practice between humans and garden eels at the Sumida Aquarium in Tokyo, Japan. "Remembering humans” is explored as a humanature cultural discourse that emerged from humanity's social distancing phenomena, seemingly bridging humanature connection amidst the multitude of discourses that removed humanity from nature. This discourse also functions within a form of tourist gaze in tourism institutions. Even though small in scope, this cultural discourse analysis brings to surface one way we have discursively engaged with our solitude during quarantine mirroring it on more-than-human animals' experiences. Further investigations about this, and other humanature emerging communication practices, are needed to better understand how the social isolation phenomena impacted communication meanings about humanature relations.