不要放生小威利

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圖片來源:美國地質調查局

你可能認為水族箱及其奇異的生物會給你帶來數小時的快樂和放鬆。但實際上,維護它似乎成了一份全職工作。把魚衝進馬桶?太殘忍了。也許最好把它們放生到最近的水域,讓它們自由自在地遊動,對吧?錯了。根據美國地質調查局的說法,傾倒這些生物對它們和生態系統來說都是最糟糕的事情。

在非原生棲息地,魚類容易感染寄生蟲、疾病和天敵,而它們並沒有能力抵禦這些威脅。與此同時,它們可能會捕食或與本地魚類競爭,甚至將寄生蟲和疾病傳染給本地魚類。因此,以前的寵物可能會迅速變成可怕的害蟲。(例如,一些水族箱物種——淡水魟魚和食人魚——也可能對公眾健康構成嚴重威脅。)


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美國地質調查局生物學家帕姆·富勒說,想要處理掉水族箱魚類的人們應該考慮將它們退回當地寵物店,送給其他愛好者,或捐贈給公共水族館、學校或醫院。

Kate Wong is an award-winning science writer and senior editor at 大眾科學 focused on evolution, ecology, anthropology, archaeology, paleontology and animal behavior. She is fascinated by human origins, which she has covered for more than 25 years. Recently she has become obsessed with birds. Her reporting has taken her to caves in France and Croatia that Neandertals once called home, to the shores of Kenya's Lake Turkana in search of the oldest stone tools in the world, to Madagascar on an expedition to unearth ancient mammals and dinosaurs, to the icy waters of Antarctica, where humpback whales feast on krill, and on a "Big Day" race around the state of Connecticut to find as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. Kate is co-author, with Donald Johanson, of Lucy's Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins. She holds a bachelor of science degree in biological anthropology and zoology from the University of Michigan. Follow Wong on X (formerly Twitter) @katewong

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