According to researchers at Australia's Murdoch University, giving in to your temptation to set him free in a local lake won't just leave you without a pet — it'll kick start some serious ecological sabotage. As revealed in a study published by their Freshwater Fish Group & Fish Health Unit, "introduced freshwater fishes are one of the major global threats to aquatic biodiversity."
And this isn't just some fish story. When dumped into a larger environment, those innocent little koi or goldfish grow at an exponential rate, introduce parasites that harm other species, and have the potential to decimate an ecosystem.
"They are eating up the food resources and using up the habitat that our native fish would otherwise be using,"research fellow Jeff Cosgrove told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Even worse? They can be "extremely difficult to eradicate," says Cosgrove. In other words, they're not going belly-up anytime soon.
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