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ecosystems

A Minnesota city has issued a notice to residents to please stop releasing their unwanted pet goldfish into local lakes and ponds because they are turning into Frankenfish and messing with the natural order of things.

Okay, they didn't say Frankenfish, but take a look at the monstrous size of these goldfish. Not exactly the little fishbowl friends you find at the fair.

The city of Burnsville, Minnesota posted the plea on Facebook and Twitter, explaining what a recent fish survey had found in a local lake. "Large groups of goldfish have been observed in recent years on the lake. At high populations, goldfish can contribute to poor water quality by mucking up the bottom sediments and uprooting plants," the post said.

"You see goldfish in the store and they're these small little fish," Caleb Ashling, Burnsville's natural resources specialist, said in an interview, according to MSN. "When you pull a goldfish about the size of a football out of the lake, it makes you wonder how this can even be the same type of animal."



There's a common myth that goldfish will only grow to the size their enclosure allows. While there is some truth to that, according to Tropical Fish Magazine, the limited size of at-home goldfish has more to do with water quality than aquarium size. The reality is that common goldfish can grow very large in size—up to 18 inches—and their impact on ecoystems they aren't designed for can be significant.

"A few goldfish might seem to some like a harmless addition to the local water body – but they're not," wrote the Minnesota department of natural resources earlier this year.

The city of Eagan, Minnesota, has experience with the problems invasive goldfish can cause. Several. years ago, some goldfish dumped into a pond at Eagan's Central Park resulted in a population spun out of control, which muddied the waters and harmed native plants. It took three years of effort and a great deal of expense to rid the pond of the issue.

"We tried netting them out," Koehle says, "and we got thousands of them, but we couldn't get them all," said Eagan water resources specialist Jessie Koehle, according to Minnesota Conservation Volunteer magazine. Eventually, we had to use rotenone to reclaim the pond, killing all the fish and starting over."

"It can be a pain to figure out what to do with a goldfish that you don't want," Koehle said. But releasing them into a lake or pond isn't the best solution, even if it seems like the kindest one. It's also against the law to introduce fish into bodies of water where they don't naturally live.

The city of Burnsville recommended that people rehome pet fish with responsible caregivers rather than release them out into nature. That's good advice for fish owners no matter where you live. One little fish may not seem like a big deal, but when it results in an explosion of an invasive species, it can wreak havoc on ecosystems and cause real harm to other living things. If your fish didn't come directly from the pond or the lake you're looking at, don't put it there. Keep pet fish in tanks, and keep the balance of nature intact.

On Dec. 11, 2016, animal lovers sat in front of their TVs, devastated at what they saw on the screens in front of them.

It had to do with baby turtles.

"Planet Earth II" — the sequel to BBC's 2006 mega-hit series "Planet Earth" — had documented Hawksbill turtle hatchlings in Barbados.

The series, which aired in the U.K. and is coming to the BBC America this January, culminated in an episode focused on how cities are affecting animal populations around the world.


The Hawksbill turtle — a critically endangered species — was one of the featured creatures. And it was really tough to watch.

The series, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, explained what happens when these hatchlings are born.

When Hawksbill turtles hatch from their eggs at night, their immediate instinct is to go toward the brightest horizon, which — if humans didn't exist — would lead them to the sea (and safety).

This is a Hawksbill turtle hatchling, born in a Jakarta breeding center in 2010. Photo by Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images.

But humans do exist. And our expanding societies have had a dramatic effect on this crucial point in the hatchlings' lives.

As cities continue to sprout up on seashores, their bright lights complicate those first few moments in a hatchling's life. Instead of being drawn toward the sea, hatchlings are drawn toward the artificial lights of the city. This isn't good.

Without human interference, Hawksbill turtles already have a small chance of surviving long-term, according to Carla Daniel, deputy field director of the Barbados Sea Turtle Project. But with this added barrier stopping them from safely reaching the ocean, baby turtles are getting "crushed in the road [or] lost forever in drains," among other not-so-happy endings, on their accidental journeys into the city.

It was a big wake-up call for many distraught "Planet Earth II" viewers.

The outcry among upset viewers spurred responses from the Barbados Sea Turtle Project, which partnered with the BBC during production.

"We know that watching the footage on the 'Cities' episode of 'Planet Earth II' last night was emotional and heartbreaking," the group wrote on its Facebook page. "While it does portray what thousands of hatchlings face every year, we want to reassure you that we do our very best to ensure that as many hatchlings as possible are rescued and no hatchling is ever left behind!"

Baby turtles that were hatched at a conservation center in West Sumatra are released into the ocean. Photo by Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images.

The "Planet Earth II" team also assured viewers on Twitter that its film crew did, in fact, break protocol and saved any turtles it spotted.

Typically, the crew does everything it can not to engage or disrupt wildlife while filming, but — because this particular tragedy was manmade — they decided to intervene.

The hatchlings' fatal endings served as a learning moment for viewers on the unintended consequences of our modern existence as humans.

Many of our behaviors and technologies have surprising consequences to other species. Light pollution is a great example.

It doesn't just affect baby turtles, after all.

While light pollution may not seem as harmful as, say, pumping pollution into the air or cutting down huge swaths of trees, artificial lighting is responsible for millions of bird deaths each year, according to the International Dark Sky Association. Many birds use moonlight and starlight to hunt and migrate, and bright city lights can throw them off course. Birds may arrive in a new region too early or too late, for instance, and miss the climate conditions they need to survive there.

Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images.

Artificial lighting, which unintentionally draws insects, may create a "fatal attraction" between the tiny creatures and our manmade structures as well. Although insects seem like a nuisance to us, they're often the foundation of the food web in a given habitat. A decline in Insect population can affect whole ecosystems.  

The artificial light problem may seem unconquerable for many devastated "Planet Earth II" viewers. But the last thing we should do is give up.

Take it from Carla Daniel.

“There are many times that everything feels kind of pointless," she explained candidly of the enormous problem of hatchling deaths. "'What's the point in doing this?' This is one of those things where we kind of all have to hold hands and come together and agree to make a difference.”

“If there was one, single thing that was necessary for change, [it's] for you to get up," she noted. "Go out of your house and do something [about it]."

Hobbits were real.

GIF from "The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring."


No, not those hobbits.

I'm not talking about J.R.R. Tolkien's funny, pipe-smoking, jewelry-hating race of smaller people from "Lord of the Rings" fame.

Instead, "hobbit" is the nickname scientists have given to a real but diminutive human relative, known as Homo floresiensis, that lived about 60,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores.

Real-life hobbits were only about three feet tall. What made these them so small? Living on an island.

As it turns out, a lot of species change size once they start living on islands. Big gets small and small gets big. Why? It depends on each species and each island. Different amounts and types of food might be one reason (a tiny island can't support a gigantic elephant, for example). On the flip side, a lack of predators might enable small animals to grow big.

In honor of weird evolutionary changes, here are eight creatures that got really weird after moving to islands.

1. The famous hobbits, in all their glory.

A reconstruction of what a hobbit may have looked like. Image from Cicero Moraes et alii/Wikimedia Commons.

We weren't completely sure whether the hobbits really were a case of the island effect (or whether they were normal humans with an abnormality), but the recent discovery of the hobbit's ancestors suggests that they were. Their ancestors started big, but once they got to Flores, they quickly shrank to match the island's more restrictive ecosystem.

2. While humans shrank on Flores, lizards got big. Really big.

Photo from Mark Dumont/Flickr.

Hobbits would have shared the island with the gigantic Komodo dragons. These guys earn their draconic title — they can weigh as much as 300 pounds and can grow up to 10 feet long!

And these weren't the only giants on Flores. There are also giant rats and even gigantic storks.

3. Speaking of giant reptiles, the Galápagos took tortoises and said, You know what? These guys need to weigh as much as a polar bear.

Photo from Rodrigo Buendia/AFP/Getty Images.

The largest Galápagos tortoise ever seen weighed over 800 pounds.

4. Birds got in on the gigantism game too — few as enthusiastically as New Zealand's 12-foot-tall moa.

Painting by Henrich Harder/Wikimedia Commons.

Up until the 15th century, New Zealand was home to nine different species of giant, flightless birds known as moa, which were preyed upon by the also-terrifyingly large Haast's eagle. (Not to be a slouch, Madagascar, that island off Africa, also had its version of gigantic fowl: the elephant bird).

5. The Mediterranean was home to a tiny elephant — that could just about fit under your sink!

Image from Ninjatacoshell/Wikimedia Commons.

These guys were known as "dwarf elephants" or "dwarf mammoths" and were found on Mediterranean islands like Sicily and Cyprus. Unfortunately, we're about 11,000 years too late to have our own personal three-feet-tall miniature elephants, which is just more proof that linear time is awful.

6. Tiny hippos too!

Photo from Chuckupd/Wikimedia Commons.

These guys pictured above are living pygmy hippos from West Africa, but their equally cute, equally tiny cousins once lived in the Mediterranean. Which just, gah, Cyprus — stop making all the places that don't have tiny animals like that look bad! Sadly, the tiny hippos died out about the same time as the tiny elephants.

7. At least California's Channel Islands kept their adorable tiny foxes.

Photo from National Park Service/Wikimedia Commons.

In a surprise to no one, the Channel Island fox lives on the ... wait for it ... Channel Islands, located off the coast of California. The foxes only grow to about 20 inches long, half as big as their grey fox cousins on the mainland.

8. Cuba can keep its giant solenodons though.

A Hispaniolan solenodon, the Cuban solenodon's smaller cousin. Yes, this is the cute one. Image from Seb az86556/Wikimedia Commons.

The Cuban solenodon looks a lot like a shrew ... if a shrew was about two feet long and venomous.

All these unusual species — including hobbits — were able to evolve because of their unique island homes. But, today, many of these island ecosystems are in danger.

More than half of Hawaii's unique birds have been wiped out by newly introduced diseases, invasive species, and habitat loss — a pattern seen elsewhere too. Meanwhile climate change is changing weather patterns, destroying coral reefs, and even flooding some low-lying islands.

But we can still fight back and help preserve unique island ecosystems (and incredible big and small creatures).

By being careful about invasive species, protecting native ones, and, perhaps most importantly, weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, we can ensure the health of our islands — and make sure places for tiny, giant, or otherwise unusual animals, can thrive!