People dumped their pets into lakes and now football-size goldfish are taking over..
The invasion begins innocently enough: A goldfish paddles the secluded waters of an at-home aquarium, minding its own business, disturbing no native habitats. The real trouble comes later, when the human who put it there decides it’s time for a change. Not wanting to hurt the fish, but not wanting to keep it either, the pet’s owner decides to release it into a local lake, pond or waterway. That decision, experts say, is well-meaning but misguided — and potentially harmful.
Officials in Burnsville, a city about 15 miles south of Minneapolis, demonstrated why late last week, when they shared photographs of several massive goldfish that were recovered from a local lake. The discarded pets can swell and wreak havoc, the city warned.
“Please don’t release your pet goldfish into ponds and lakes!” the city wrote in a Twitter post, which had been liked and retweeted more than 15,000 times Sunday night. “They grow bigger than you think and contribute to poor water quality by mucking up the bottom sediments and uprooting plants.”
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https://toronto.citynews.ca/2020/05/...akes-or-ponds/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/scien...fish-invasive/
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...8EAL9by4lu29ew