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Call it a natural solution to an unnatural problem.
After making a splash on the international stage, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 goldfish at Boulder’s Teller Lake No. 5 appear to be gone — and pelicans are being credited for the disappearing act.
“Isn’t it fantastic?” Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said Tuesday. “It has totally happened naturally.”
The presence of the non-native species at the 12-acre lake just south of Valmont Road, likely exploding from an original handful dumped there a few years ago, had alarmed state wildlife biologists who feared the damage they could likely do to its ecosystem. |
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The first plan announced earlier this month was to shock the fish with electrical currents and collect them for feeding time at a raptor rehabilitation facility. Then, there was talk about possibly having to drain the lake, to rid it of the fish.
All the while, news of the unusual predicament had become late-night fodder for Comedy Central and a news story reaching overseas.
But Colorado Parks and Wildlife personnel were at the lake Tuesday with trap-nets, sampling the fish population, to get a better handle on its fish census.
Their results: 26 green sunfish, two largemouth bass, 10 painted turtles and 18 tiger salamanders.
“However, it appears that pelicans have made quick work of most of the goldfish, so we don’t need to do anything,” Churchill wrote in an email. |
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