Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Marina Sante and I'm Roger Basseck. Spotlight Advanced
uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand
no matter where in the world they live. A woman sits in a boat
floating on a small lake. She is fishing. She holds her fishing pole
loosely, as if not expecting a bite. Suddenly there is a pole on
her line. She jumps up and seizes the instruments in her hand. A
fish is on her line. Excited, the woman pulls the fish closer and
closer to the boat. But when she lifts the fish out of the water,
it is different than she expected. She was hoping to catch a lake
trout, a large fish found in this lake. The fish she caught is
just as large, but it is a shiny orange color. It is a
goldfish. Below her in the water, there are thousands more just like it.
Goldfish are a kind of fish that are native to East Asia. People
all over the world keep them as pets. Most people know them as small
creatures swimming in glass tanks, but they grow much larger in the wild.
They can destroy native fish populations. How did things get this way. Today's
spots sight is on the invasion of the huge goldfish. Goldfish have a long
history as a decorative animal, prized for their bright color. In China,
it was once illegal for anyone to own a goldfish except the ruler. In
China, these fish symbolized good luck and wealth. Even after these laws went
away, goldfish remained a symbol of social standing. People first brought goldfish to
Europe in the sixteen hundreds. There, wealthy people put goldfish into private lakes.
These fish made their lakes seem exotic. People could not find orange colored
fish in the wild there they had to purchase them, so keeping goldfish was
a way to show off social standing and wealth. People brought goldfish to North
America and Australia soon afterwards. We do not know the exact year, but
records suggest that people brought them to the United States before the eighteen hundreds.
These fish came to Australia soon after. Here they noted a special social status
as in Europe, but soon the goldfish it had become the most common pets
all over the world. In eighteen seventy four, the United States government received
a shipment of goldfish from Japan. The United States Bureau of Fisheries began to
raise the fish, and in the eighteen eighties they started giving goldfish away to
people living in Washington, d c. And Baltimore. They designed these giveaways
as a publicity stunt. It was an event designed to direct notice to their
work with fisheries. But the giveaways changed the way people thought about goldfish too.
These exotic fish were no longer something special. This feeling grew even after
the Bureau of Fisheries stopped giving goldfish away. Other private fisheries continued to grow
goldfish. The animals were easy to take care of, so people kept buying
them as pets. In some places, people even gave them away as prizes.
This led to the idea that people could throw these animals away in time.
This throwaway idea spread to other English speaking countries like the United Kingdom and
Australia. Regrettably, what makes goldfish a good pet makes them a problem in
the wild. Goldfish can survive in many different situations. They can eat almost
anything, They live in colder water easily. They can even live in areas
with little oxygen. This means that they can survive for a long time in
a fish tank without care. It also means they can live successfully in almost
any fresh water in the wild. The goldfish's ability to survive has made it
a problem in countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia. In
these nations, people who do not want their goldfish will release them into the
wild. For them, it is an act of mercy not to kill the
fish. But goldfish can be very bad for the environment, and in the
wrong conditions, a group of goldfish can kill off whole populations of other animals.
One of the biggest problems with goldfish is their size. Inside a tank
of water, goldfish do not grow very large, but in the wild,
goldfish easily grow thirty six centimeters long. This makes them too big for many
predators to eat. Goldfish also reproduce very quickly. One female goldfish can produce
up to forty thousand eggs a year. With nothing to keep their numbers down,
a few goldfish can take over. They will eat all of the food
in the water. This leaves nothing for native animals. Goldfish also destroy native
plant life. They change the environment around them to make it more difficult for
other fish to live. For some animals, goldfish make life more difficult,
but for others, the situation is deadly. Kevin Nectar is an invasive animals
expert at the Nevada Department of Wildlife. He spoke to the website wideopenspaces dot
com about the problems with goldfish in his area. One of the biggest problems
we have with them in Nevada is that we have many endemic species. These
are animals that are only found in one place. When people bring goldfish to
those places, it can sometimes cause these species to die out. Sadly,
wild goldfish populations are now very widespread. Every state in the United States has
wild goldfish in their waters. They are a problem in South Africa, Turkey,
and Australia. One river in Western Australia, the Vasse River, has
the fastest reproducing population of goldfish in the world. Organizations in these countries may
never completely remove goldfish, but there are many things you can do to prevent
incidents like the Great Goldfish Invasion. First, do not release your pets into
the wild. Many common pets are not native. Give them to a new
home if you are tired of them, or donate them to a pet adoption
agency. Second, clean off your things if you're traveling. Small invasive species
catch on clothing, shoes, and even the bottoms of boats. A swift
clean can stop them from getting to places that they do not belong. Finally,
support your local environmental groups. These groups will manage invasive animals like goldfish.
They will also inform you with threats to your local wildlife life. Have
you ever had a goldfish as a pet? Have you seen one in the
wild. You can leave a comment on our website or email us at Radio
at Radio English dot net. You can also comment on Facebook at Facebook dot
com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer and producer of this program was Dan Christman.
The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States.
All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotslight. You can listen
to this program again and read it on the internet at www dot Radio English
dot net. This program is called The Invasion of the Huge Goldfish. You
can also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our
free official Spotlight English app. We hope you can join us again for the
next Spotlight Advanced program. Good Bye,