A reef shark living at a zoo in Kaliningrad has suffered a nervous breakdown after visitors repeatedly defied house rules and banged their fists on its glass enclosure.
According to a spokesperson for the Kaliningrad Zoo, visitors knocked on the shark's glass aquarium to attract its attention, despite explicit requests not to do so, state-run RIA Novosti reported Friday.
The shark was not used to the excessive attention and began charging into the aquarium walls, during which it hurt both its nose and its eye, the spokesperson said.
After the wound refused to heal, zookeepers decided to close the shark's enclosure, and it is now being treated with antiseptics and sedatives to help calm it down.
A tiger at a zoo in Ukraine's capital Kiev suffered an apparent stress attack earlier this year after a visitor sneaked into its cage to give it a hug before drawing a weapon and firing it into the air.
The "poor unhappy tiger" was clearly shocked by the incident and was seen lying down, curled up, until late at night, a zoo employee told Ukraine's TSN television at the time.
The reef shark is also not the only inmate at Kaliningrad Zoo to have suffered an uncomfortable experience during its time in captivity.
The zoo now restricts access to its sea lion enclosure at weekends and during the holidays after guests earlier defied house rules by feeding seals with frozen fish, resulting in some of them falling ill, RIA reported.