Originally published at: Goldfish dumped into a Minnesota lake grew to gargantuan sizes | Boing Boing
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They are edible, why not just eat them out of existence, humans are good at that.
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My dad has a “pond” that is maybe 4 feet in diameter and maybe as deep? He put some gold fish in there and they get 8 or 9 inches long in there.
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I’ve got one getting close to that size in a 50-gallon hex tank. It’s probbly 10 inches now and I don’t think it has room to grow more. But it keeps surprising me, so I guess we’ll see. I’m not sure where I’d put a 75-gallon tank, though.
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Good to use as bait, not very edible for humans, possible food source for pets…
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Mosquito control.
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This has been a huge problem out west, too. There is a very remote lake that has/had a wild population of threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout - until some moron put goldfish in the lake and now it’s all goldfish.
On a related note, I’ve seen released koi in the 40 lb range out here.
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There used to be a whole school of goldfish that size downstream of the local (non-nuclear, I might add) power station.
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muck up the bottom –– same thing that happens when you drop republicans in red states
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Reminds me of this childhood favorite:
“Never feed him a lot. Just so much, and no more! Never more than a spot! Or something may happen. You never know what.”
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Raccoons love going into goldfish ponds in residential neighborhoods. They can clean the fish and snails out really quickly.
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Carp have a natural defense; they taste bad.
Seriously though, they have a physiological stress response that changes their internal chemistry resulting in an unpleasant taste. The response is triggered and exacerbated by poor water conditions and large temperature swings. And the Twin Cities lakes aren’t known for being pristine.
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but so do bass, crappie and catfish… doesn’t stop people from eating them.
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Catfish is pretty good as long as it’s raised in clean water that doesn’t get too cold, is put on ice as soon as it’s killed and is prepared while it’s still fresh by an experienced cook.
In fairness, I’ve heard the same is true of carp, which is after all a staple in Asia and a popular game fish to eat in Europe. But from the Twin Cities lakes? Er, no offense to Minneapolitans, but I think I’ll pass.
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and that’s saying a lot… cuz you crazy descendants of the norway will eat any and all of the nasty fish things. 
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thirty odd trips around the sun ago a couple of friends and i hatched a plan to populate our local Texas lake with Oscars. I still think it would’ve been great had we succeeded… a couple dumps of fry happened in a side-pond… but not enough to defeat the crappie long enough to establish and transfer to the lake during the next flood. i suppose it was doomed from the start… the passion for the project didn’t stand a chance against vagina and lsd binges.
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They’re worse of a pest than regular carp.
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Definitely. While they are not native to North America, carp are pretty low impact in our waterways. Note that I’m not talking about silver carp - those things are a menace! Goldfish have all the cons and none of the pros of common carp.
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But even so, you can always purify yourself in the waters of lake Minnetonka
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