Saturday, June 11, 2005

Gobystoppers

MLive has this story about the "Goby Assault Party" held on Muskegon Lake, Michigan today. The person who fishes the most round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) out of the lake wins $1000. A prize also goes to the person who catches the largest round goby ("Goby Dick" - get yer mind out of the gutter!) and all gobies caught get hung in the "Goby Gallows."

Update: "Goby Dick" was 8 inches long, and worth $500 (People, please! Behave yourselves!). Read all about the catches of the day in this MLive article.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now *that's* good marketing. Getting the general public involved like this is great, and not that easy to do.
And "Goby Dick"--I love that.

Anonymous said...

This is a great idea: it makes the public (and kids) aware of an invasive species issue, and gets rid of some of the darn things, too. It might even inspire someone to come up with a better, more efficient way to catch gobies, even if the only motivation is to win a prize next year. Wonder if there is a way to do this for Mute Swans? A much bigger PR problem!

Mike said...

I'm not sure I'd like to see a mob pulling Mute Swans out of the Chesapeake. The recent stories of individual swans being assaulted in public parks is grisly enough.

Gobies, though, are an entirely different story.