Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex Linder
Tilapia are delicious. I haven't heard of anyone dumping them in North America, interesting. They are freshwater Asian/African, I don't see why they couldn't survive here.
|
Blue Tilapia is what I see most of and are very common in Florida, but to everyones surprise they demonstrated the ability to thrive in colder water climates where the oxygen levels were thought to be non supportive of this species. They are along the same lines as carp in regards to taking over a water system. They are aggressive and cannibalistic. Utah is a class example of this when someone dumped Tilapia into a lake up there. True story. The fish took over. The government spent millions draining the lake and treating the soil for eggs. Not long after the lake was reinstated the Tilapia were back. In Hawaii Tilapia are considered junk fish.
Pike are another example of a good water system gone bad because when they are artificially introduced they will wipe out a lake. When they have eaten everything they result to cannibalism and the Pike population then becomes reduced down to stunted size cannibalistic fish.
It is a federal offense to have a fish in a bucket. One way the gov deals with this is a poison that eliminates oxygen from the water. Unfortunately it kills everything else. In Colorado, they have hybrid lake Trout upwards of 30 pounds. This sounds great except the government has repeatably failed at killing or at least controlling these huge trout. The reason the gov is targeting them is that these trout are killing the other trout species like the cutthroats which equate to tourist dollars.