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Goldfish Threatening Lake In Colorado

    Wildlife officials in Colorado believe someone dumped four or five pet goldfish in a Boulder lake about two years ago. These few non-native goldfish have now multiplied to between three and four thousand in number and are threatening the entire aquatic ecosystem of the lake. img-goldfish

    Jennifer Churchill, a spokesperson with Colorado Parks and Wildlife said,  “Dumping your pets into a lake could bring diseases to native animals and plants as well as out-compete them for resources. Everything can be affected. Non-native species can potentially wipe out the fishery as we’ve put it together.”

    “Fish that are native to the lake that  are now being threatened by the invasive goldfish include channel catfish, blue gill fish and sun fish,” Churchill said.

    Officials with Colorado Parks and Wildlife are considering two solutions to this problem – electro shocking the fish or draining the lake.

    Trying to shock the fish would be very labor intensive, expensive, and inefficient since catching them all would be next to impossible.

    Draining the lake would kill the goldfish as well as the native fish. The lake would then have to be restocked at a considerable cost.

    goldfishThere a number of other examples in our country of the devastation that can be caused by the careless release of non-native fish, animals and plants into a different ecosystem.

    We all need to work together to protect our environment. Cats, dogs, fish and other pets should never be released into the wild. It is also important to remember that all plants should be purchased locally, not dug up and transported from other regions.