The roughly bowling pin-sized goldfish is far from the only one of its kind: In 2013, for example, a 4.2-pound, 1.5-feet-long goldfish was found in Nevada’s Lake Tahoe basin. “They’re winning, they’re lasting longer and they’re continuing to live and grow.” “Without a natural predator, they’re winning all the competition for food and resources,” Jennifer Fee, BNW’s marketing director, tells the Huffington Post’s Jamie Feldman. (Jonathan Carey of Atlas Obscura points out that the Great Lakes region’s interconnected sewer system is more than a century old and, when overburdened by heavy precipitation, often dumps excess household sewage into nearby bodies of water.) Regardless of how it arrived, the former pet thrived in its new habitat, growing to an enormous size and, to the detriment of the area’s native species, operating unchecked by predators.
Coming out on top goldfish free#
The fish in question was either flushed down the toilet or set free in the river by its owner. As experts were quick to point out following the movie’s release, flushed fish typically die long before they reach the ocean, going into shock upon immersion in the toilet’s cold water, succumbing to the noxious chemicals found in the sewage system, or-if they make it this far-finding themselves eliminated at a water treatment plant.īut what happens to the few pet fish that survive this harrowing journey, as well as those released directly into the nation’s waterways? A photograph recently posted on Facebook by nonprofit Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper (BNW) reveals one potential outcome: A 14-inch goldfish caught downstream of a wastewater treatment plant in the Black Rock Canal of New York’s Niagara River. The 2003 Pixar film Finding Nemo popularized the misconception that all drains lead to the ocean, encouraging young fans to flush their pet fish down the toilet in an ill-advised bid for freedom.
A 14-inch goldfish caught downstream of a wastewater treatment plant in the Black Rock Canal of New York’s Niagara River
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