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ST. GEORGE — Wildlife officials in Cedar City received a surprise Wednesday morning when someone brought in a large fish they found along the shore of a city fishing pond. Soon identified as a pacu, a popular aquarium fish, officials took to social media to warn people against ditching their fish in outdoor ponds and rivers.
“This pacu was found dead on the shore at the Lake at the Hills in Cedar City today,” wildlife officials posted on the Facebook page for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Southern Utah region. The post came complete with photos of the expired fish.
“The pacu is a popular aquarium fish and was probably recently released by its owner after outgrowing its tank. Native to the Amazon, the pacu didn’t survive long in the cold water,” officials wrote on Facebook.
The pacu is a more placid cousin to the piranha and lacks its nasty, pointy-fanged teeth. A pacu’s teeth are more flat and human-like and used to chomp fruit that falls into the water from overhanging trees, rather than tear out chunks of meat.
“We don’t see this very often,” said Phil Tuttle, DWR’s outreach manager for Southern Utah.
Read more of this story at St. George News.