Getting any kind of pet should be a lifetime commitment, whether it’s a dog, cat, goldfish, or any other animal. Unfortunately, that’s not how everyone sees it and many people discard pets when they don’t want them anymore. That ends up not just being a detriment to the pet, but to the environment as well. This week several warnings came out of Minnesota about giant goldfish found in various bodies of water. The Star Tribune writes:

The proliferation of the bright orange fish, which don’t naturally live in Minnesota waters, is a problem that’s plagued communities around the metro as pet owners seeking a humane next chapter for their pets — which hail from east Asia and are a smaller cousin of the common carp — end up adding an invasive creature to their local waterways. It is illegal in Minnesota to release goldfish into waterways.

According to the Washington Post, “Far from being an innocuous domestic animal, a goldfish freed in fresh water is an invasive species, an organism that is introduced to an environment, can quickly reproduce, outcompete native species and destroy a habitat. And even though they get less attention than invasive organisms such as Asian carp or zebra mussels, goldfish appear to be a growing problem in bodies of water across the United States and around the world, triggering warnings from government officials in Virginia, Washington state, Australia, Canada and elsewhere.”

Watch more from the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis above.