Dear Editor:
I am a student at John Black Public School. There is a small species of invasive fish called the round goby, which lives in the Grand River. They eat the eggs of other fish, and may spread diseases to the creatures that eat them, which comes from the zebra mussels that they eat.
Canada has done not nearly enough to prevent them, only banning them as pets and bait for fishing. While they do have many predators, including walleye, yellow perch, and lake sturgeon, they reproduce very fast and produce up to 10,000 eggs per spawning. The only good thing about round gobies is the fact that they remove parasites from other fish, and even then, they produce offspring up to six times in one summer.
In order to stop the spread of these fish, one option is to empty our boats after fishing, in case they stow away. We as a community should support the Stop The Spread Program which is run by Trout Unlimited Canada, and hopefully we can drive these fish out of our water.
Omar Kridli,
Fergus