Stop ‘animal behavior’ in museum
Print Edition
WEB users have urged visitors to the city’s new natural history museum to treat it with respect after an exhibit died and a model was broken.
The Shanghai Natural History Museum has become a popular attraction since opening on April 19, with long queues forming outside the Jing’an Sculpture Park venue.
Visitors have praised the museum for its interactive exhibits, allowing visitors to get close to display items, including pools where children can touch aquatic creatures.
However, the museum admitted that a starfish died after visitors lifted creatures from the water and the toe was snapped off a model of a komodo dragon — an Indonesian native and the world’s largest lizard at up to 3 meters.
Hundreds of people left comments online and reposted the details on WeChat accounts. Many called on visitors to improve their behavior.
One web user said visitors should “learn from this and behave themselves while visiting the museum or indeed any tourist destination.”
Others suggested the museum should raise ticket prices.
Gu Jieyan, director of the display service department of Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, which supervises the natural history museum, told Shanghai Daily that the starfish died during a trial opening.
“We didn’t have many volunteers and staff supervising display areas at that time and lacked experience,” she said.
“Some visitors who took starfish and fish out of the pool for taking pictures. We asked them to put them back and taught them how to properly touch the sea creatures.”
She said the museum will fit glass tops over pools outside of the limited “touching time.”
Gu said staff found the reinforced plastic komodo dragon’s missing broken toe on Friday morning, and that it has been reunited with its owner.
Museum officials said they will increase patrols to better protect exhibits.
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