Goldfish nearly the size of footballs pulled from Minnesota lake, photos show

These aren’t your average goldfish.

The city of Burnsville, Minnesota, shared photos Friday of huge goldfish recently discovered in Keller Lake and they appear to be nearly the size of a football.

“Please don’t release your pet goldfish into ponds and lakes!” the city tweeted. “They grow bigger than you think and contribute to poor water quality by mucking up the bottom sediments and uprooting plants.”

This isn’t the first time goldfish have been discovered in a suburban Minneapolis lake.

Last year, officials removed about 100,000 goldfish from a lake in Chaska.

Photos showed them removing the goldfish by the truckload. Pet owners illegally dumping unwanted goldfish in bodies of water are the likely culprits, officials said.

This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 7:44 PM with the headline "Goldfish nearly the size of footballs pulled from Minnesota lake, photos show."