Northern pikes against invasive pumpkinseed sunfish

This video is about pumpkinseed sunfish in an aquarium.

Translated from the Stichting Bargerveen in the Netherlands, Friday 15 November 2013:

Hundreds of pikes for stopping invasive sunfish

This morning, a unique experiment starts in the Mastbos in Breda. Not less than 800 northern pikes are brought in by the Forestry Commission to fight the large local pumpkinseed sunfish population. This invasive species from South America

sic; from North America

is a major threat to native aquatic fauna. Capture of this exotic species is impossible in the Mastbos, so people hope native predators will be a solution.

Guzzler

The waters in the Mastbos in Breda have been infested for years by pumpkinseed sunfishes. This alien species has been brought by humans to the Netherlands as an ornamental fish, but it also ended up in natural waters. The pumpkinseed sunfish is an omnivore which thrives here and reaches very high densities. This is at the expense of the native aquatic fauna. This is massively eaten by the sunfish, including endangered species such as large white-faced darter dragonfly and palmate newt.

The busier the neighbourhood, the bigger the brain — at least for pumpkinseed sunfish, according to a pioneering study by University of Guelph biologists: here.

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