I had contemplated throwing all of our aquarium fish back into the pond in front of our house for quite a while. I had gotten quite lazy about cleaning the tank, and with a big pleco in there, there was just shit everywhere. The remaining fish were pleco, a native plant-eater called pla kady, and a stickleback-sized minnow of unknown species who washed up on our driveway less than a week ago after rain and flooding (which is getting worse every year). Today I finally got around to washing the tank and cracked it, badly, when laying it on its side. So I asked Max and Mina what they thought and they actually open to the thought of throwing the fish back in the pond to “be with their families.” Finding fucking Nemo, that surprised me.
So that’s where they went. The cruel irony is that they might not last a full day restored to the wild. You see, the excavator came and cleared away vegetation on the banks again, so the pond was once again made accessible. So at sundown, a bunch of foreign workers came and strung up nets inside of the pond to catch many future meals (the pond, which hasn’t been seriously fished for years now, is chock full of fish). I asked Nam to call the housing office to come chase the hunter gatherers away, because I don’t want them coming back to check their nets when we and our neighbors are gone during the day (since they are in a good spot to scope out empty homes when at the pond). The response was swift, and the workers disappeared, but the nets are still out there (the workers will definitely be back for their nets, no matter what). So I’m afraid the fish I released today, especially big, dumb Pleco, are going to get caught. This bothers me.