Kudos to you for removing invasive species.I don't know if you guys have the same problems as we do here, but there's a lot of aquarists that have released a TON of pleco's everywhere here. I aim to kill them where I know they shouldn't be in the first place. Even as a little kid 20 years ago I was seeing them and hand catching them in the springs (releasing of course). This is fine because while they can travel down stream, they generally don't with the food source changes, and temperature changes. I know 2 lakes specifically where I'm paid to remove them by property owners. Because we all know pleco's like caves. Since florida is sand, the pleco's make caves in shallow water. Eating away at the property lines. And for one, he's lost a lot of cows because the pleco's make swiss cheese out of the ground and the cows sink and die, tainting the watering hole for drinking and of course losing a lot of money over cattle.
While I don't like to kill a fish, I know that I've speared 5 common pleco's in 1 sitting that were all over 18 inches long. I even went swimming and hand caught one (that one was a TON of fun lol) when the water temps were lower. There are soo many large plecos in this lake that his section of dock that was on land just for sunbathing and looking out on the lake without being over the water now has about 3 feet of ground that has collapsed and needed to be filled in because it was a foot deep hole right as you stepped onto the start of the dock. From the start of that dock to the actual shore line is about 5 ft.
The econlockhatchee river I've seen the shorelines expand about 8 feet in the past 4 years. Luckily in that section it's a concrete overflow going in, and a dam going out so hopefully they don't leave there naturally.
If everyone did their part there would be a lot less issues in the world.
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