I was just out on a walk and ended up at a local wildlife pond, which has rare newts and tons of other stuff living there, its like a little local treasure. Pic on here, 5th one down.. http://www.horndeanpc-hants.gov.uk/countryside.htm
Well I was sat there enjoying all the natural beauty, the newts and frogs coming up for air, pond skaters skating about.. and I couldnt believe my eyes when two massive goldfish swam by!!!
Some idiot has illegaly released their goldfish into the wild. I couldnt see a single tadpole in the pond and those fish were looking suspiciously fat
I'm planning on catching the fish and re-homing/keeping them.. but do I need to inform the council before I do anything, incase anyone catches me and thinks I'm releasing them?
I can't imagine what would happen to that pond if those fish start to breed and we end up with tons of them destroying everything in there.. those poor crested newts and froggies
...not sure how I'm going to catch them, might have to go up there every day and feed them to get them tame, then it wont be so hard to lure them into a big net or something.

My guess is there are more than just 2 in there. How big are they? Commons or comets?

I think u should inform the council for sure.

There might be a few more than two, but its not a huuuuge pond so not impossible to get them all out.
They are a good 8 inches..
Theres one common and one shubunkin.

I personally would make sure to talk to the Proper Authorities before attempting this feat. The last thing that you need, would be to get into any trouble for just trying to help.
It's a shame though that people don't think about consequence's for the things that they do.

There used to be a sign up saying not to release goldfish in there and it gave all the reasons too but i didnt see it last night.
I'm gonna call the council today and ask about it.

I've just been talking to a friend and I mentioned this and she says that they are from a fair last summer when loads of people won them and just dumped them there.. apparently there were loads of them, I think most of them died over winter as the pond is only about 2ft deep at the deepest part and they were only small 1"ers.

oh Lucy thats terrible let us know how it goes with the council

well.. bad news, but also some very good news!
There are at least 8 of these guys in there, we were just sat there for about an hour and I counted 8 different fish.
Good news is, I found out some of my friends passtimes, she is chairman of the parish youth council and is the head of the youth environmental group! So all she has to do is run the idea past the rangers (her bosses sorta thing..) for us to have permission and even a grant from the parish to get these fish out.
She even says she knows the right people to write to and convince about getting a ban on fair goldfish in this county.. says it would be relativly easy if we give them good proof and evidence that its not a good thing for the goldfish or the native wildlife.
She has an old blow up swimming pool we can use for QTing the fish, they can live in my pond until they find homes and if we get a grant (as we can get money for little expenetures etc.) we can use that money to buy any QTing stuff we might need, like salt or meds. We might need to buy some fishing rods as it looks like the only way we are going to catch them, most of them aren't tame at all.
We can definatly get proof that they are detrimental to the pond (apart from the law saying they shouldnt be there!) we are going to find some figures of what species etc. that were in there a year ago (probably from the infant school right next to it as they go pond dipping for their classes) and do a pond dip next week and see how it compares. I'm sure it will as there definatly should be tadpoles in there and we still haven't seen a single one.

I have emailed the guy in charge of environmental issues in the area, he should get back to me in a few days (my friend knows him and says he's kinda slow with emails).

A fact about England this year, all around the country tabpols are in short supply this year,
something to do with the cold spring start we're having.

On another note my friend is big on fishing, he's even caught some large gold fish in the past, he had a picture of a 12 inch comet once if he's still got the pic I'll see if I can post it (he did put it back rules of the lake)

Yea, I did think about that, but there are more ponds in the area and they all have at least a few tadpoles in, the last few probably got eaten.
I took some picturessss


http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/fis...gucfhftu004.jpg



http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a184/fis...gucfhftu007.jpg

woah... who ate all the tadpoles???

I've never seen such a round goldfish

Are you going to have room for all these fish in your pond if you are able to save them?

It'll be a squeeze, but biologically I should have room for most of them temporarily while i find them homes.. I have 180 gallons, but the filters not great, i'll have to keep a close eye on water quality. We may just do a few at a time, only take the next ones out when we have rehomed the last ones.
My friend's friend has just had all her fish eaten by a heron, so we are going to find out if shes re-stocked her pond yet.

You can't really use fishing rods.They could cause some real harm to the fish. I know that I once saw an article on this type of story before,and they had to either drain the Lake/Pond,or Syphon the water out to get the fish.(I forget now) If that would harm the wildlife,then I guess look for someone that has a huge swimming pool with one of those very big nets on a pole. Regardless,I'm glad that more people are getting involved to help.
And by the way,that Goldfish did look huge!

I'm going to use fishing rods as a last resort but I think its the only thing that will get all the fish out, we may be able to get a few of the tamer ones with a net but there is a huuuuge area of plants (in the second pic on the first link, y'see the big load of plants on the right). Theres water under all that and the fish all hide in there, theres no way a net could get in there I dont really see any way we could drain the pond.. I'll mention that to the rangers. I'd hate to have to use the rods, but putting it into perspective, the pond is much more important than the fish. I have relatives who own a fishing tackle shop and have a rod licence so I might ask if they can come fish the fish out, at least then we have someone who knows what they are doing, so will cause less harm to the fish. Wild ones seem to survive being fished, so with a bit of salt and melafix, I hope these can.

I've just got back from the Youth Parish Council meeting and it was discussed there and there are things that need checking but everyone voted for the removal of the goldfish to go ahead, no one opposed. Someone there even has a big blow up swimming pool she can lend for me to QT the fish.
Since we are doing it through the parish council we have to do health and safty stuff though, someone mentioned that we will need a qualified life guard there as it involves water