Carping about the problem

 

Not very long ago, I wrote a post about recent concerns regarding feral goldfish in Minnesota lakes. 

The problem is, in part, that they aren't just in Minnesota lakes. They are also in the Great Lakes. As if those wondrous and huge bodies of freshwater didn't have enough problems to worry about (zebra and Quagga mussels, Asian carp (not there yet, but encroaching), sea lampreys, alewives) ... now they have to worry about giant goldfish.

Once They Were Pets. Now Giant Goldfish Are Menacing the Great Lakes.

"Nicholas Mandrak, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough, said that while goldfish were introduced to North America in the late 1800s, the wild population had begun to “dramatically increase” in the past two decades. Their spawning explosion, he said, resulted partly from people in densely-populated areas releasing pets in urban ponds."

Climate change may play a role, because of the goldfish’s capacity to adapt to warming and poorly oxygenated waters, he added.

“There are literally millions of goldfish in the Great Lakes, if not tens of millions,” Dr. Mandrak said."

Kill 'em and feed 'em to the fish