Police in Norway are set to open investigations into what authorities suspect to be illegal releases of pike fish at several locations in the country.
Administrators in the central Nord-Trøndelag region called individuals suspected of carrying out the practice “pike mafia”.
LINK (via: The Local)
Sadly, we Brits have seen the same sort of thing happen over the past 30-plus years, first with “cool” Carp, then with another whiskery Brit cyprinid, the Barbel. Quite a Gold Rush in fact, with a few would-be high-profile Brit-fishers looking to put their name up in lights (and attract lucrative tackle and bait company sponsorships) in our “Coarse Fishing” (non-salmonid species – imagine your Crappies and Pumpkinseeds up to Northern Pike) weekly papers and monthlies. The mindset appeared / appears to have been “Once they’re in, they’re in. Live with it!”. Problem with all this has been is that when Fishy Fashion changes and the hot new species pack has moved on to something else, waters are left with their unwanted fishy remnants. Instant, eye-blink fashionable, must-do fish have also had another effect: somehow devalued Angling and, for a good many Anglers, destroyed the pastime’s discreet but all-gripping magic and got-to-go-out desirability, leading to a considerable reduction in the number of regular, committed participants, which in turn has had a kick-on effect on licence and tackle sales and uptake of memberships of fishing clubs and societies whose waters don’t hold the Cool New Fish of the Season, or, if they do, in insufficiently large, photographable size to merit attention from the Gloryhole Hunters.
Good luck finding those guerrilla-stocking gangsters, Norway; they are not pretty, gorgeous and lovable like bad but good old Bonnie and Clyde.