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Wildlife officials are always on high alert for invasive species that have the potential to wreak havoc on a local ecosystem if they’re able to gain a foothold. You might not think goldfish are a huge cause for concern, but they’ve managed to attract plenty of attention after taking over a pond in a park in Ottawa.
The United States is no stranger to invasive animals, as a number of different species have managed to set up shop in America. California recently declared open season on some swans that have started causing issues in the state, Florida has spent decades engaged in a battle with Burmese pythons, and you obviously can’t forget the “murder hornets” that were thankfully eradicated after popping up in the Pacific Northwest.
Canada also has its hands full thanks to a menagerie of dozens of unwanted animals, including feral hogs, nightmare-inducing sea lampreys, and some murder hornets of its own. You might not think some goldfish in a pond in the middle of a city we be a super high priority, but they’ve nonetheless been selected for a mass culling after things started getting out of hand.
Officials in Ottawa will cull thousands of goldfish from a pond that could be home to millions of them
The word “goldfish” probably conjures a mental image of one of them swimming around in a small glass bowl. The tiny carp are native to China (where they were purposefully bred for their distinctive color over 1,000 years ago), and they’re a largely domestic species that has a propensity for causing issues if they’re able to proliferate in the wild by harming local flora and fauna.
According to the CBC , they have been able to do exactly that in a pond at Celebration Park in Ottawa, and officials in the Canadian capital have turned their attention to the body of water that boasts what one city councilmember describeds as a “mind-blowing” number of goldfish.
The outlet says city employees removed 5,000 dead fish from the pond back in March, and while a surveyor estimated the pond (which is designed for stormwater runoff) is currently home to between 500 and 1,000 living ones, Carleton University biology professor Steven Cooke said there may actually be millions of tiny fish in the water based on how rapidly they’re able to multiply (a single female goldfish can give birth to 6,000 more per year).
If you’re curious about the size of the pond, here’s a satellite photo that shows it’s around as big as the soccer field in the park where it’s located (it’s not entirely clear how they ended up there in the first place, but the most likely explanation is that the population can be traced back to unwanted pets that were released into the water).
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The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry requires the euthanization of invasive species if they’re captured, and city employees will continue to trawl the water with nets in an attempt to round up the fish (as Cooke notes, those efforts will likely be futile if at least one male and female manage to evade capture, but the city lacks the permit to deploy a “fish-specific pesticide’).
I guess we’ll have to check back in a few months to see how things turned out.