Don't release your goldfish
Invasive species, whether plant, animal, fish, reptile, or insect, can cause significant harm to an ecosystem. While not all invasive species cause serious harm, they all displace native species to some degree. Displacement of some of the native species in an ecosystem ripples through the other species that rely on that habitat. And some invasive species are nearly impossible to control and cause serious harm to ecosystems. The lionfish, an Asian species, has reached new habitat in the western hemisphere, where it has no predators and causes serious harm in coral reefs. Severe mammal declines in Everglades National Park have been linked to invasive Burmese pythons, which were likely introduced through escapes from the pet trade or when pet snakes were released when they became too big. Cheatgrass, native to Eurasia and the Mediterranean and now well established in the US, colonizes any open, dry habitat and has the potential to completely alter the ecosystems it occupies by completely replacing native vegetation and changing fire frequency and intensity. The article below discusses how even the everyday goldfish, a popular small fish kept as a household pet, has become a serious invasive species as people have released unwanted goldfish into the environment. They can grow to more than a foot long and weigh more than three pounds. So, don’t release your goldfish, pet snake, or any other critter into the wild unless it is native to the area. I’ll cover invasive plants in another post on another day, but invasive plants can have a bigger negative impact on an ecosystem than invasive critters.
