Why You Shouldn’t Let Your Fish Swim Free
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – May 2, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – Those goldfish you can’t take care of any more so you let them go?
It is causing a huge environmental problem. It’s a problem wildlife managers have had to deal with every day. “It keeps us busy,” said Drew Cushing, sport fishing coordinator for Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. He says every year, his agency is forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to control non-nature aquarium fish. Many times it’s because fish owners get tired of their pets and dump them in a pond or a river or a creek. “They want to release them, and they think they’re doing a favor, when in fact they are doing the natural resources of Utah a disservice,” Cushing said. He said that disservice comes in the form of disease and over-population. A handful of fish multiply to become thousands and soon they are out-competing native fish for the same food. Sometimes they actually feed on the native fish. “Say you have some fish and you no longer want to take care of them, there are a number of pet shops in the Salt Lake Valley that will take those fish back, ” said Chris Fidone from Salt Lake City’s Fish 4 U. He said he sees many people trying to offload fish that they just are not prepared to handle. He said even common goldfish can live for 25 to 30 years. “You have to be prepared to care for that fish for a very long time,” he said.
He says a lot of people turn to the loosely regulated internet to buy fish that can really cause a problem if they get loose, like snake head or piranha.
