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Goldfish removed from town ponds

Thousands of domestic goldfish have been removed from two storm water ponds in Okotoks over the past two months.
Okotoks parks manager Christa Michailuck holds one of the large goldfish found in the Crystal Ridge storm water pond. After two applications of rotenone, the fish have been
Okotoks parks manager Christa Michailuck holds one of the large goldfish found in the Crystal Ridge storm water pond. After two applications of rotenone, the fish have been eradicated.

Thousands of domestic goldfish have been removed from two storm water ponds in Okotoks over the past two months.

Okotoks parks manager Christa Michailuck said the final application of the chemical rotenone, which kills susceptible fish, was done on Oct. 12 in the Crystal Ridge pond. Both the Crystal Ridge and Drake Landing ponds received two treatments to eradicate the invasive species.

“We only turned up four fish in the last treatment,” said Michailuck. “We thought we got the majority in the first, but we’re glad we did a second because you don’t want to leave one behind.”

Goldfish were likely placed in the ponds by residents who found they could no longer keep their household or backyard pond fish, she said. The biggest concern was the effect of non-native goldfish entering the Sheep River, she said.

Michailuck said a fisheries biologist working with the Town over the summer responded that the oldest fish, some of them as large as dinner plates and weighing a whopping 800 grams, had been in the pond for at least five years.

At this point there isn’t evidence of goldfish in any of the other 15 storm water ponds in Okotoks, she said.

She urged people not to release fish into the ponds.

“Residents should not let their fish loose,” said Michailuck. “Pets need to find a new home, or in the case of aquarium creatures and things if they can’t then they probably need to be euthanized humanely and disposed of.”

Moving forward, the Town intends to purchase minnow traps to check all of its ponds for non-native species on an annual basis.

“They’ll only pick up the smaller fish but it will still give us an idea of what species we have,” said Michailuck.

She said some of the ponds have native minnows, but if more goldfish or other invasive species are found in ponds around town they’ll have to be managed. If there is only a handful of fish, it could be done by netting or electro-fishing, she said.

If populations grow to the hundreds or thousands like the Drake Landing and Crystal Ridge ponds, rotenone applications would be used again, she said.

It was local residents who noticed the goldfish in those two ponds, she said. Any suspicious-looking fish should be reported to the Town, she said.

“If anyone sees fish and want to get it identified, they should definitely give us a call,” said Michailuck.

Some local schools have taken up the torch and are studying the environmental impacts of invasive species, she said. Both Westmount School and Big Rock School have done research and projects on the subject. Grade 5 students at Westmount School are developing a newsletter to be distributed to all students, she said.

“Probably the best prevention on the issue is public education, so it’s fantastic to get local youth involved in the issue and understand it and prevent future occurrences.”

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