{"id":10760,"date":"2025-11-19T17:16:44","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T20:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/19\/mindblowing-population-of-feral-goldfish-in-ottawa-pond-to-be-euthanized\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T17:16:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T20:16:44","slug":"mindblowing-population-of-feral-goldfish-in-ottawa-pond-to-be-euthanized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/19\/mindblowing-population-of-feral-goldfish-in-ottawa-pond-to-be-euthanized\/","title":{"rendered":"Mindblowing population of feral goldfish in Ottawa pond to be euthanized"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>OttawaThe City of Ottawa is preparing to euthanize a school of invasive goldfish in a stormwater pond near the Central Experimental Farm \u2014 though a local fish scientist warns the city may be vastly underestimating the scale of the problem.City may be vastly underestimating the scale of the problem, says fish scientistCBC News  \u00b7 Posted: Nov 19, 2025 12:15 PM EST | Last Updated: 1 hour agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.No one knows exactly how many goldfish are in this stormwater pond in Celebration Park in Ottawa\u2019s Central Park neighbourhood, seen here on Tuesday. (Ben Andrews\/CBC News)The City of Ottawa is preparing to euthanize a school of invasive goldfish living in a stormwater pond in the Central Park neighbourhood, though the size of the population remains in question.In March, city staff removed about 5,000 dead goldfish \u201cusing nets in the water and by hand\u201d from the pond in Celebration Park, according to a written statement.The city now says it has found a new population of goldfish in the same pond. Based on \u201ca rough visual assessment,\u201d the surviving school is believed to number somewhere between 500 and 1,000, the city said.\u201dThe fact that we\u2019ve had approximately 6,000 fish in this pond, in this year, is mind-blowing,\u201d said Coun. Riley Brockington, who represents the area.\u201dIt\u2019s just a number that\u2019s difficult for me to wrap my head around.\u201dWATCH | City to euthanize school of invasive goldfish:Over 1,000 goldfish live in this Ottawa pond. The city says that\u2019s a problemResidents first reported thousands of dead fish washing up on the shore of an Ottawa stormwater pond in March. Now the councillor for the area says they\u2019re back.But even that number may underestimate the scale of the invasion, according to Carleton biology professor Steven Cooke.\u201dThese are the kinds of fish that are extremely fecund \u2014 fancy word for they make lots of babies,\u201d he said.\u201dThe average female goldfish can generate 6,000 or so offspring a year, and so all you need is one boy, one girl, and you got an awful lot of offspring.\u201dCooke estimates the actual population could far exceed the city\u2019s estimate and may already number in the millions, but he added most of the fish would have been spawned this year and would still be \u201ctiny.\u201dGoldfish a \u2018smothering\u2019 invasive speciesNative to eastern Asia, goldfish are considered an invasive species with established populations throughout Canada and the mainland United States. Hamilton Harbour, for example, is overrun with a particularly acute infestation.In stormwater ponds, the fish encounter few predators. Left unchecked, they tend to proliferate, displacing native species and limiting aquatic plant growth by stirring up muck from the pond bed.\u201dThey wind up smothering, basically dominating the waters in which they\u2019re introduced,\u201d Cooke said. \u201cThey can be really quite devastating in these small systems.\u201dIt\u2019s not known how the goldfish ended up in the stormwater pond.In a written statement, the city said it is required by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to euthanize all invasive fish captured in stormwater ponds.\u201dWhen staff remove these goldfish, they will continue to use nets to collect the fish from the pond,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cThe City will not drain the pond or use any chemical treatments as part of this work.\u201dCooke said netting could help decrease the population size, but he warns it\u2019s not an effective method if the goal is to eradicate the population entirely.\u201dAll you need to do is miss one male, one female, and then you\u2019ve got a pair that are ready to start cranking out babies,\u201d he said.The most effective option for a closed water system, Cooke said, would be to use a fish-specific pesticide to wipe out all fish living there. But authorities often lack the \u201csocial licence\u201d required to take that approach, he added.\u201dThe most important message from this is, let\u2019s use this as a lesson and stop this from happening,\u201d he said, urging people not to release their pet goldfish into the wild.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OttawaThe City of Ottawa is preparing to euthanize a school of invasive goldfish in a stormwater pond near the Central Experimental Farm \u2014 though a local fish scientist warns the city may be vastly underestimating the scale of the problem.City may be vastly underestimating the scale of the problem, says fish scientistCBC News \u00b7 Posted: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,1047,1],"tags":[116,1046],"class_list":["post-10760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-ontario","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-ontario"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}