Adapt, re-use, and enjoy!
Adapt, re-use, and enjoy!
We’ve created a ‘Do-It-Yourself’ version of our favourite fish – the AnNex Psychic Fish. The AnNex Psychic Fish was created in 2019 as a public engagement tool to explore people’s perceptions around fish use, sentience, and how these shape and define assumptions around their welfare requirements. Getting a reading from the AnNex Psychic fish served as a way of starting conversations with people, allowing us to see what the public thought about our research and, in a broader sense, how they felt about fish.
Following a number of successful outings with these little fellows, and a workshop during which we consulted expert stakeholders familiar with the use of fish in public engagement with animal research, we decided it was time we shared the secret and make it easy to create your own.
This toolkit allows you to generate your own fold-out card to accompany the standard cracker toy psychic fish. You can add your own psychic reads, customise the look, and then automatically generate your own cards as ready-for-printing PDFs. You’ll also find guidelines and suggestions for the successful use of them in public engagement activities.
We think this toolkit could prove and adaptable way of engaging with publics for anyone working with fish and concerned about their welfare, be this in animal research, public aquaria, conservation, pet stores – or beyond!
So if you want to ‘break the ice, start a conversation or just help people get in touch our inner fish, take a look and see what the Annex Psychic Fish can do for you!
You can find the Annex DIY Psychic Fish here. You are free to adapt our Psychic Fish for your own purposes without seeking prior approval from us. Please acknowledge the Animal Research Nexus in your creation and we would love to hear how you get on!
You can learn more about the genesis of the Annex Psychic Fish here
And don’t forget! We also have an ‘online version’ of the game for you play here
Although many people have contributed to the development of the Psychic Fish phenomenon along the way, we’d like to pay special tribute to the undoubted driving force behind it – Bentley Crudgington.
And finally, we couldn’t have done it without the expertise and effort of Kris and Tom of Switch Systems. A huge thank you to them!