Goldfish have taken over Teller Lake in Boulder, Colorado. Wildlife officials have come to the conclusion that a handful pet goldfish were released into the lake a few years back, and have since risen to numbers in the thousands.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Jennifer Churchill believes that the fish, though domesticated, are capable of out-competing other fish in the lake and could upset the ecosystem of the lake. They may even be carrying harmful diseases.
"These are domestic fish, actually. These are fish from a store, I imagine, and they could carry disease. But the fact that they are populating the area so much that they are spreading out across the lake, they can out-compete the native fish,"
Wildlife officials have cited two methods of fighting the invasion. They can either drain the lake so that they could reset the ecosystem, or they could deploy a specialized boat that could help with collection of the fish. Churchill says that "[The boat] has little pointers at the front with electroshock. It stuns the fish. It doesn't kill them. They get stunned and they float to the surface and we can collect them,"
Should they begin collecting the goldfish, they would then be used as feed for nearby raptor rehabilitation centers.
As of yet, there is no timetable for implementing either method.
H/T 9NEWS.com