B.C. has a problem: Goldfish as large as a football are rapidly cloning themselves

Goldfish are adaptable, intelligent, and many people’s first pets that, in some cases, end up being flushed down the toilet. And that has become a big problem, as big as a “football,” one might say.

“They’re not the little fish you see in the pet store,” Brian Heise, an associate professor in the department of natural resource sciences at Thompson Rivers University, told the Canadian Press earlier in March.

Heise is sounding the alarm on illegally dumped goldfish in B.C. waters. The rate at which they are multiplying is being seen as a threat to native fish species. The invasive species can have 50,000 eggs at a time, three times a summer.

“They actually get quite large, and they have the potential to get even larger, especially probably in some warmer, more productive waters,” he tells CP.

For all their wonderful personality traits, goldfish are also quite independent. They don’t need a male to multiply.