A friend recently told me I could have his 7 new goldfish or that they would be flushed down the toilet. To buy time, I accepted them, but I really had more interest in saving their lives than letting them be killed. Do goldfish live in the wild? Could I let them free in a nice pond or river somewhere? I live in the northeast, so it will only be summer here for 2-3 more months.
Don’t release them!! Goldfish are domesticated ASIAN carp ie: not native; they can survive northern winters. Goldfish can overwinter in Alberta for comparison, and you don’t want to introduce foreign sepecies into the your ecosystem. Granted, they will probly last a week or two before they get eaten or expire, but they can live, and will breed. Way too many foreign introductions have happened in ways such as this. Take the fish to a pet store and they will most likely take them (for feeders). Donate them to a local aquarium club, or pawn them off on another friend. If all else fails, you can dipatch of them yourself; but take my word for it - goldfish are domesticated, plentiful, and not in danger of extinction. Don’t let them go… if they die it will be through starvation or being killed by something else (bad way to go), and if they live, they will probly be a headache for everyone else down the road.
I agree with the “don’t let them go” suggestion. Find them a good home in a tank. That said, I remember finding a wild goldfish population in a Long Island, NY, pond on one of my parent’s environmental surveys. It surprised the hell out of them; the goldfish were quite plentiful, and large, but had turned a muddy brown color.
Obviously someone had released them, and they were thriving. We took a few back home, out of curiousity, and after awhile in a tank, they turned orange again. I don’t remember the mechanics of this, but there ya go.
There are no wild breeding populations of goldfish in the US.
They’d be OK in a park lake or whatever. They can live under ice.
If you decide to euthanise them, but them in a bucket of water and put it in the freezer. That is reccomended by the pond guy at Aquarium Fish Magaziene.
When in running water, goldfish will turn back to their native carp color. That’s why koi ponds aren’t real ponds, so the koi will keep their pretty colors. 
So one poster says that it’s okay to take them back to the pet store where they will likely be sold as “feeders,” but says it’s cruel to let them go in the wild because they’ll be eaten by others. Another poster says the humane way to dispose of them is to put them in the freezer. Is this suggesting that my whipping a trout out of the water on a hook and bocking its head on the boat gunwale is… cruel?
BTW, I agree that one should never release a non-native species into a different eco-system. Not that most of the species we have now are native anymore, but I’m just sayin’.
Not too sure about flowing water changing a goldfishes color there… but goldfish do start out being a brown-copper color. Within a year usually, depending on food, light, water quality, and so on they will take on their orange or blotched pattern - it’s to do with age and maturity. Goldfish sold as feeders tend to meet a quick end - often just a few seconds in a big cichlid tank and they will be strumming their little harps, plus they will be fed up until the big day. Dumped into the wild, they will meet a longer more drawn-out demise should they not survive. The water quality will undoubtedly be different, as will food sources and abundance. If you’ve ever moved an indoor fish out to your backyard pond, you’ve noticed them freaking out for a few days until they get used to seeing the sun above, and all the other natural processes that they’re not used to. They’ll be more susceptable to all the new diseases out there, and will be quite stressed - often fish will die from stress and lack of food alone… that’s the cruel part of a pet fish being left to die in the wild. Goldfish are easly to take care of - they’ll nibble your fingers, and you can stare into their eyes and wonder if they remember you from a few seconds ago or not
:rolleyes:
From what I understand, there ARE some breeding populations of goldfish throughout the US. In fact, it’s become a nuisance species in some places. However, while doing a bit of surfing, the consensus seems to be that releasing aquarium fish into the wild stresses the fish severely, and shouldn’t be done. And euthanizing CAN be done at home, humanely, by simply freezing the fishies in water.
http://nas.er.usgs.gov/fishes/dont_rel.htm
If you want to do a further search, I suggest using wild goldfish releasing -crackers as your keywords.
Crackers?
I rarely feed my goldfish in outdoor pools, which are much more densley populated than natural ponds and they do fine.
Personally, I’d rather take my chance with the wild outdoors than a freezer or be eaten as a ‘feeder’.
BTW a major cause of death of large aquarium fish is ‘goldfish ingestion’ where the feeder gets stuck in the feedes’ gut. 
Specific details on how to euthanize goldfish:
Put them in a big Tupperware container filled with tank water. Put it in the freezer, with a lid on it to keep them from jumping out. Leave it there until it’s frozen solid. Their metabolism goes slower and slower as the water gets colder and colder, and eventually they just “go to sleep”.
[sub]Psst, Carnivorous–you know, “Goldfish”, those little Pepperidge Farm crackers?[/sub]
Once you have euthanized them, you can prepare them according to any recipe suitable for carp, including Carp Burgers. I imagine your goldies are a little small, though.
When I was a kid, we had a fish tank with a mix of about 8-9 different types.
One day, my father and I stopped at a pet store and got a guinea pig. When I got home, the tank was empty. I freaked. “Ma, did you flush all my fish?!?” She just pointed at the sink garbage disposal.
She felt it was more humane to give them a quick death instead of let them “survive” in the sewers. Wish she’d known about the freezer trick.
“Crackers?”
“-crackers” The minus is there so that results with “crackers” in them are not shown, same as a NOT in other search engines. This is to exclude webpages that refer to goldfish crackers but not real goldfish.
take freezer bag, fill with water, put goldfish in water filled freezer bag then tape bag to your chest. Go to your local wal-mart or other store with pet department and go to the pet department fish tanks make sure nobody is looking then rip goldfish filled freezer bag from your chest and dump fish into the goldfish tank
Begging your pardon, it being your Mama and all, but that is sick.
Check for aquarium and gardening clubs in your area. Water gardeners like me (rich folks call them “water features”) have fish in their pools.
I’ll gladly take them if you are in Little Rock!
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by carnivorousplant *
Begging your pardon, it being your Mama and all, but that is sick.
[QUOTE]
I totally agree.
[but hey, that’s my ma!]
She grew up on a farm in southern Ohio, so I suppose this type of thing didn’t bother her too much.
[/but hey, that’s my ma!]