BURNSVILLE, Minn. — Officials in one Minnesota city are urging residents to refrain from releasing pet fish into local waters after football-sized goldfish were pulled from Keller Lake earlier this month.
According to the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, officials performing a routine water quality assessment discovered 10 oversized goldfish, some a full foot long, in the lake. A follow-up assessment conducted Monday yielded 18 more of the popular pets, some as long as 18 inches and weighing as much as 4 pounds.
Goldfish are members of the carp family, and they are considered an invasive species to Minnesota waters, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.
“Most of (the goldfish) were definitely bigger than you’d find in your typical aquarium,” Daryl Jacobson, the city’s natural resources manager, told the newspaper.
In addition, the aquatic interlopers make it harder for native fish to feed, and it happens to be illegal to release goldfish into Minnesota’s waterways, the Pioneer Press reported.
“Instead of releasing your pet goldfish in a local lake or pond, please consider other options for finding them a new home like asking a responsible friend or neighbor to care for it,” city officials wrote in a plea to residents on Facebook.
The invasive goldfish discovered during the city’s surveying effort were killed. Click here to learn more about the process used to net and measure the fish.