Football Sized Goldfish Minnesota Lakes

Subway sandwich is a foot-long and so is American football. You know what else is also a foot-long? Goldfish. That’s right. The aquatic animals that people keep as pets. That goldfish.

Football Sized Goldfish Minnesota Lakes
Image credit: City of Burnsville, Minnesota.

Apparently, people have been dropping off their pet goldfishes into the lakes and ponds in Minnesota and before long, they have grown into gigantic proportions.

A foot-long is the average. If goes unchecked, they could probably grow even bigger. It is both surreal and alarming. Surreal because, while I knew goldfish can grow fairly big, I never thought it could be the size of a football or larger.

Our family used to have some goldfishes and they indeed grew to quite some size. If I recalled correctly, one of them was nearly 5 inches in length. Granted, it was still considered a small fish compared what they have found in the lakes of Minnesota.

Anyways, it is alarming because, goldfish is actually an invasive species and according to Carp Solutions’ Przemek Bajer, goldfish (and carp) kills the aquatic plants as they uproot the underwater plants in search of food.

Football Sized Goldfish Minnesota Lakes
Image credit: Jeremy Holt (Fisherman)/Virginia Department of Wildlife.

That said, if you have enough of them, native plants could be destroyed with pretty much no recourse. That’s not to mention the clouds of sediment the process resulted.

NOW READ  MSCHF Unveiled Fabuloso Scent, Announced WD-40 Cologne Is Restocking

Basically, it is bad news for the environment of which this species of fish is not native too. In fact, goldfish is ornamental fish that’s never meant to be in the wild.

Anywho, in case you are curious, a foot-long goldfish weighs around 4 pounds. To put things in perspective, a typical pet store goldfish weighs around 0.2-0.6 lbs.

And if you think 4 lbs is the best it can grow too, well, perhaps not. Apparently, a man in Kentucky had caught one to weighing at a beefy 20 lbs. 20! That must be least 2 feet in length! (Or may be not).

If you are interested, you may read the full story about the Minnesota’s goldfish problem HERE.

Featured photo: City of Burnsville, Minnesota.

via All That’s Interesting.