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People tossing pet fish into lakes have created monster goldfish the size of footballs

City of Burnsville/Facebook

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.

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A story about a man who swims to work went viral. Here's what makes his commute possible.

Benjamin David lives in Munich, and he swims to work.

Every morning, David checks the speed and temperature of the water...

[rebelmouse-image 19530356 dam="1" original_size="400x201" caption="All GIFs via BBC Capital/Facebook." expand=1]All GIFs via BBC Capital/Facebook.

...puts on his swim trunks and packs his dry bag with the clothes and gear he needs for the day...

...and swims 2,000 meters, or about 1.25 miles, down the Isar River to work.

Thanks to a great video from BBC Capital, David's story went viral last week. But lost in the surprising and delightful nature of his morning commute is what's making it possible: efforts in major cities to clean up polluted urban rivers and return them to swimmers.

Cities like Paris, New York, Boston, and London have all made an effort to return their rivers to swimmers and beachgoers.

Local governments are partnering with civic nonprofits to raise funds for cleanup, natural pools, and marketing efforts. Why focus on swimming? It's affordable, safe, and fun for residents of all ages, and public access to rivers and lakes is a great way to build community and inspire people to care about their waterways.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has made cleaning up the River Seine a priority and hopes to have open-water swimming events in the waterway for the 2024 Olympics. In July, she opened canal water pools in a section of the Bassin de la Villette canal in northern Paris. These clean swimming zones are sectioned off and filtered to ensure a safe dip.

Photos by Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images.

American cities are pushing for river pools too. For seven years, a nonprofit in New York City has been working on +POOL, a floating swimming pool in the shape of a plus sign that can filter impurities through its walls. They have a bevy of backers and great designs but are currently in a holding pattern with the city, waiting for a site to install it.

An artist's rendering of +POOL, the idea of am NYC nonprofit. Image via +POOL.

One city that's seeing the benefits of returning the river to swimmers is Portland, Oregon.

The city is split in half by the Willamette River, a thoroughfare still used to export grain and dry-dock ships. But despite Portland's eco-friendly persona, the river was long neglected and prone to sewage overflows. With the completion of the Big Pipe, a sewage infrastructure project, the Willamette has been remarkably clean and safe for swimming. Yet it was still hard to persuade residents to dive in.

[rebelmouse-image 19530361 dam="1" original_size="750x562" caption="Photo by Ian Sane/Flickr." expand=1]Photo by Ian Sane/Flickr.

That's where local nonprofit group Human Access Project comes in. The group of volunteers pursues its mission of transforming Portland's relationship with the river by creating public spaces like access points and beaches, supporting education and conservation efforts, and, of course, jumping in for a dip. The HAP hosts the Big Float — a floating party in the river — an annual river swim with Mayor Ted Wheeler, and even has a swim team called the River Huggers. Yeah, seriously.

"For us, swimability is a platform for hope," says HAP Founder and Ringleader Willie Levenson. "Our hope is that if we can reconnect people with the river through their own self-interest, through something that will benefit them — being able to get into the water and swim — they will naturally care more about the outcomes of what's happening in the watershed. They'll naturally be more inclined to fight for this thing that they love and enjoy."

[rebelmouse-image 19530362 dam="1" original_size="750x562" caption="The River Huggers take to the water. Photo via Human Access Project, used with permission." expand=1]The River Huggers take to the water. Photo via Human Access Project, used with permission.

Are swimmable rivers and lakes not on your city's radar? There's still a lot you can do.

While most people don't have the time to found and organize their own nonprofit like Levenson, there are similar groups like the Waterkeepers or your local watershed council that are already doing this work. Donate your time or make a contribution to keep the good going.

You can also start using the body of water to swim, kayak, or relax. It's fun, affordable, and close to home. Check the water quality test results online before jumping in, and bring a friend or swim buddy. Let your local elected officials know you want safe access to your water and support candidates that make it a priority.

You may not use it to commute, like David, or create a float party with thousands of your closest friends, like Willie Levenson, but it's your community and your water, and you deserve a clean, safe place to enjoy it.

Beachgoers enjoy Portland's newest river access point, Poet's Beach. Photo via Human Access Project, used with permission.

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Heroes

River piracy may be climate change's weirdest effect. It just happened in Canada.

Kluane Lake in Canada is supposed to look like this:

[rebelmouse-image 19527245 dam="1" original_size="750x450" caption="Image via Mandruss/Wikimedia Commons." expand=1]Image via Mandruss/Wikimedia Commons.

The lake is one of Yukon's largest, home to a handful of small communities, and its waters eventually feed into the mighty Yukon River.

So how the heck did it end up looking like this virtually overnight?

Image via Jim Best/University of Illinois.

It's supposed to be pristine and blue, not brown and full of weird, muddy goosebumps and dry, dusty mudflats.

This is a shocking case of what scientists call "river piracy." Something stole Kluane Lake's river.

The culprit wasn't a foul-mouthed, foul-smelling 17th-century sailor, though. The real culprit was — and is — much more creeping and insidious.

Kluane Lake used to get a big chunk of its water from the Slims River, which in turn was fed by the Kaskawulsh glacier. For years, the Slims River had been an ice-cold torrent of water up to 10 feet deep and too strong to wade through in some areas.

Over the course of four days in May 2016, though, river gauge data shows that all of that water just ... disappeared.

An aerial view of water being diverted from the Slims River. Image via Dan Shugar/University of Washington Tacoma.

Dan Shugar and Jim Best, scientists from the University of Washington and University of Illinois, went up to investigate in person. When they got there, they found a bare trickle of water where the river should have been.

"We were really surprised when we got there and there was basically no water in the river," Shugar said in an Associated Press report. "We could walk across it and we wouldn't get our shirts wet.”

They knew if something was stopping water from getting to the river, it must have happened uphill, likely at the mighty Kaskawulsh glacier that feeds the river.

When the scientists went to investigate, they found a massive 100-foot-tall ice canyon — a giant hole basically — inside the glacier's edge.

The ice-walled canyon. Image via Jim Best/University of Illinois.

It was the evidence they needed to identify the primary suspect behind the river's sudden vanishing act: climate change.

As the planet has gotten warmer, the Kaskawulsh glacier has been retreating and breaking up. For a long time, its meltwater had been going toward the Slims River.

When the river disappeared in May 2016, it was the result of the glacier having retreated enough that an ice wall collapsed, forming a canyon and diverting the meltwater down a different side of the mountain, away from the Slims River. Instead, the glacier's water rushed into the Alsek River, a phenomenon scientists call river piracy.

Satellite images taken one year apart show how much the river has fallen. Image via the European Space Agency.

River piracy hasn't been documented in modern times and certainly never this quickly. Shugar's team is more than 99% sure this wouldn't have happened without climate change.

Ever since, the Slims River has been a mere trickle and Kluane Lake has dropped more than 5 feet below average.

Shugar at Kluane Lake. Image via Jim Best/University of Illinois.

Kluane Lake is more than 45 miles long, so this isn’t a small amount of water we're talking about. The two communities on the lake will likely have to learn to deal with the water shortage because it’s virtually impossible that things will go back to the way they were.

Being witness to a case of river piracy is pretty incredible, but the speed at which it happened is a stark reminder that the effects of climate change can happen both slowly and all at once.

The Yukon is a pretty remote and sparsely populated area, but if a river disappeared in, say, the Andes or the Himalayas, it could affect the water supplies of millions of people, giving them little time to adapt to the change.

There are still plenty of things we can do to mollify the effects of climate change, but the first thing is to take it — and its causes — seriously and make sure the people in charge take it seriously too. Because if we don't, who knows where or when river piracy will strike again.

The team's findings were published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.

No one had ever skated on this frozen mountain lake. Until now.

Winter is coming. For now, at least.

Winter in the coastal rocky mountains of British Columbia is not perfect filmmaking weather. So when aerial filmmaker Bradley Friesen finds a window to make videos, his collaborators have to be ready at a moment's notice.

For figure skater Katrina Lazzarotto, that meant saying yes to flying up to a tiny lake atop a mile-tall mountain — and buying a new pair of skates on the way to the airport.

Lazzarotto and her new blades on the way to the airport. Photo by Bradley Friesen, used with permission.

The expense was worth it. In a few short hours, she'd be skating on ice that human feet — let alone feet in skates — had never touched before.

Lazzarotto laces up for the skate of a lifetime. Photo via Bradley Friesen/YouTube.

The lake on which Lazzarotto is about to skate is extremely remote.

It's deep within the coastal mountain range, about 50 miles northeast of Vancouver. There's no way to get near it, no roads or access. You'd never know it existed unless you were a mountain goat or you'd flown over it in a small helicopter.

This glacial lake is one of seven nearby nicknamed "The Mystics." They range in color from deep blue to bright green during the summer. Photo via Bradley Friesen/YouTube.

Finding a frozen lake this high in the mountains without snow cover is extremely rare. "I'd say it's about a once every ten years phenomenon," says Friesen as we chat by phone. "But because of climate change, it's happened the last three years in a row."

And when it does happen, it's time to seize the moment.

To quote Internet prophet David after Dentist: "Is this real life??" Photo via Bradley Friesen/YouTube.

Before this day, Lazzarotto hadn't skated in four years. But it all came back quickly.

Lazzaratto called this skating "on heaven." She's not wrong! GIF via Bradley Friesen/YouTube.

When you're a mile high in the mountains, perspective comes easy.

Filmmaker Bradley Friesen has been flying helicopters for the last 25 years, but only in the last two has he actively pursued a living as an aerial filmmaker. He's passionate about documenting western Canada's wild outdoors — particularly in winter, which on the coast gets shorter ever year.

Lazzarotto shoots the duck for the camera. Photo via Bradley Friesen/YouTube.

"I'd be stupid not to be an environmentalist," Friesen says. "Climate change is having an effect on all of us. Our glaciers in British Columbia are receding so fast. They used to move back 10 feet in a season, now it's like, 50 feet or more every year."

Photo via Bradley Friesen/YouTube.

"I think it's important I'm capturing it, so we can show people in the future what winter used to look like."

Photo by Bradley Friesen, used with permission.

Friesen has two other winter videos he dreams of making.

He wants to film a pairs skating team in the mountains — holler at him on Twitter or Instagram if you are in one and live within a day of Vancouver — and he's desperate to build a hockey rink and play a game on a frozen mountain lake.

"I've tried to build a rink 15 times and failed every single time," he says, laughing. "I can tell you precisely how not to build a hockey rink at 5,000 feet."

Here's hoping winter sticks around B.C. long enough for him to make his dream come true.

GIF via Bradley Friesen/YouTube.