Funny radio story.

[esoxlucius]

I was listening to the radio in my fork lift truck at work the other day and they had a phone in on the subject of the wrong and rights of goldfish being awarded as prizes at fairgrounds.

Anyway, it quickly escalated into more of a competition on who had actually won a goldfish and kept it alive the longest. Listeners rang in with their stories telling the presenter when they won their goldfish and what happened to it.

Calls would often start with...."well I won my goldfish back in 2010" and blah blah blah, or, "well I took my son to the fair in 1996 and he won a goldfish" and blah blah blah.

i was amazed at how many of these fish were still alive, many living for over 20 years. As the call went on the fish seemed to be getting older and older and I was becoming more and more intrigued with the call.

Then this guy rang up and said, "well I won a goldfish when I was a child back in 1968 and"...........I couldn't believe it, surely not, this guy has a goldfish that is 52 years old, it can't be, it must be some kind of a record. I literally stopped what I was doing and turned the engine off to further listen to this fascinating call, to witness first hand this tale of astonishment.

Even the presenter was dumbstruck. "Oh my god, oh my god, please tell us this goldfish is still alive". The caller went on, "unfortunately not, it went belly up that same day and I flushed it down the toilet!!!!!"

I was gutted, the presenter was gutted, and I bet everyone who was listening was gutted. Millions and millions of listeners with lofty expectations of this goldfishes lifespan, dashed in a split second, lol.

 

[jjohnwm]

I'm pretty sure that goldfish have the potential to live many decades...but the vast majority don't last many weeks or even days. A bunch likely don't even make it home alive!

A little girl who had a goldfish was devastated when she came home one day to find her pet floating lifeless. In an effort to console her, the girl's mother told her they would arrange a goldfish funeral, complete with ceremony, flowers, and shoebox casket that they would bury in the garden. The girl gradually cheered up bit by bit as this was put together. When they went to retrieve the body for burial, the mother was relieved to find the goldfish alive and apparently healthy, and was beaming when she showed her daughter the happy fish and told her that no funeral was needed.

The girl stared at the fish for a moment and then said "Oh, mom...let's kill it!"

 

[esoxlucius]

The girl stared at the fish for a moment and then said "Oh, mom...let's kill it!"

The same can be said of the clueless, hapless hobbyist, only they don't actually want the fish dead, it's their inadequate skillset that kills them instead, lol.

 

[Deadeye]

I’m pretty sure the largest koi have been recorded at over 200 years old.
Me, I haven’t kept one older than 5 or so…I did breed them though (only one offspring made it). This was back during the dark ages of my fishkeeping, and let’s just say leporinus, crayfish, and goldfish don’t belong together. Sad part was that I saved it only to leave it in a 10 gallon tank with a clawed frog to never get cleaned. That is my biggest mistake ever in fishkeeping.
Anyway, it’s amazing how little we know of the potential of one of the most widely kept fish ever. I’d love to keep them right one day, as I’m sure we all would.

 

[Fishman Dave]

one of my dads friends passed away a few years ago and he was one of the people who got into fish keeping because of me when I was younger.
When I was 16 he bought three koi for his pond. When he died his wife closed the pond down and I took the three fish. One of these koi is still alive in my pond today and is currently 35 years old and still going strong.

 

[esoxlucius]

What surprised me most about the phone in, other than the long lives that many of the goldfish had led, was that the people who had won them weren't hobbyists and didn't have a clue what to do with the fish. Many said they did research, which in itself must have been difficult because many of the tales were pre internet.

So they go and read a book or ask some advice from a LFS, and just get on with it. And it was very apparent from the fishes ages that although they were complete novices they did stellar jobs in looking after them.

I didn't expect it at all because the mortality rate of fairground goldfish is extremely high, even before the fish gets home!

I found it all quite heartwarming really that rather then just flush the poor fish down the toilet, as is the case with many, some took the time and effort to try and care for the fish, and some with fantastic success.

 

[Fishman Dave]

That’s how I started fishkeeping as a nine year old boy. I won a goldfish at a fair , way back when it was ethical and legal to do so. I kept goldie in a bowl on our sideboard for years ( or more likely she died four times and was duly replaced ) until eventually we built a pond (6x2x18”) and the hobby took off from there. We then built a 2ft tropical tank on casters to go under our tv cabinet. Back then TVs weighed 40kgand we’re huge so not sure how well a full 2ft tank and a tv wheeled around on shag pile carpet!
Never looked back from there and 41 years later I have never been without at least one fish tank (or ten), even through uni when my Clarias came with me.
There was something to be said about those sacrificial fair goldfish.
I would only ever try the ones that you could win a fish on, like hook a duck or pingpong ball in the goldfishbowl and am really glad it kicked off my hobby, albeit as my wife points out regularly, we would be rich if we didn’t keep fish!

 

[esoxlucius]

we would be rich if we didn’t keep fish!

True, my bank balance would be healthier if it wasn't for this hobby. But I'd like to say my life is substantially more enriched through being in the hobby, so it levels out, sort of.

 

[Ogertron3000]

Do they still actually do the goldfish prizes in the U.K?
I was there in early 2000s and saw it a lot at all the town fairs but there was lots of talk of it being cruel and wanting to ban it back then. Sometimes on the way home you would see bagged up goldfish in the bins or dumped on the street where people had won them and didnt want them.

 

[esoxlucius]

Do they still actually do the goldfish prizes in the U.K?
I was there in early 2000s and saw it a lot at all the town fairs but there was lots of talk of it being cruel and wanting to ban it back then. Sometimes on the way home you would see bagged up goldfish in the bins or dumped on the street where people had won them and didnt want them.

That's what I thought. So that very evening I did a bit of research and discovered it IS still legal in the UK to have goldfish as prizes at fairgrounds. Though it is banned in Scotland, good on Scotland.

One of the feeble excuses the government gave to carry on was that the moment of pleasure for a child as they discovered they'd won a new pet was priceless! WTF.

They didn't seem to get the counter argument that what about the feelings the child gets when the fish dies because mum and dad haven't got a Scooby Doo how to look after the poor creature!

But one thing that radio phone in showed me was that not all the goldfish are doomed. Sadly, the lucky fish who are actually cared for are in the minority.