How do new ponds become populated with fish?

Question

How can a new pond or lake become populated with fish when there is no human intervention? Frogs I can understand as they have legs and will travel overground. But fish can't survive for that long out of water. I've heard theories of fish eggs becoming stuck to water birds and getting transferred this way; but is there any positive proof of this happening?

I should have said that I'm excluding the obvious like eels which do indeed travel over land. I mean species shuch as pike, perch, roach etc. I'm also thinking of isolated pools not those with any form of feeder stream. These do get populated within a year or two of being dug once the pool has settled.

Sorry everybody, it seems that most people are stating the same thing - with a couple of exceptions. I know of pools that have absolutely no other waterways connecting them nor any streams that could flood into them. I do know this as fact as they are literally only about a mile away from where I live. They have fish in them but no intervention from humans or flooding. I am still inclined to think the eggs have stuck to passing water fowl and been deposited from there.

As for Bamma??? What is he/she smoking? :-)

Answer 1

Bamma say he open meter box. Bamma say full of water. Bamma say been there months. Bamma say fish swimming in there. Bamma say where the heck that come from? Bamma say this very puzzling. Bamma say nearest lake 2 mile away. Bamma say up hill from lake. Bamma say how this possible. Bamma say there it is bigger than all day. Bamma say nobody have access but Bamma. Bamma say special tool to open. Bamma say dinosaur fish lay dormant for million year til wet. Bamma otta know.

Answer 2

I recently was working on a new construction site where houses were being built in a new subdivision(central Florida) and there was a recently made small retention pond that had a tiny dead perch raked out by a worker cleaning trash out of the edges of the pond. No human would have begun stocking fish in this, still now, unlivable polluted water. There have been no floods from anywhere or even any animals that could have possibly carried transfer to here. Fish can not yet live in this pond, yet something.........probably an osprey or gull has already perhaps instinctively begun to seed this new (tiny) body of water. I have no direct proof of this, but, there you have it. My guess is ospreys which are quite numerous in Florida and would seem to be a 'more intelligent?' species of bird........however I did notice a number of egrets around this tiny man-made retention pond. Go figure

Answer 3

Fish stocking has occurred for such long time, that there are hardly any water bodies that don't have fish in them. Most people don't realize that many water bodies would not have fish if people didn't stock them. There are records of people stocking fish throughout history, as far back 1000 B.C. in China, and during the Middle Ages in Europe.

There's only four ways that fish can get into another water body: floods; by 'waking' over land; transportation by another species; and in extremely rare circumstances, through tornados that siphon water.

Floods happen regularly and they are the most common mechanism for temporarily connecting water bodies. Not many fish can travel very far out of water - no species native to North America travel across land for more than a few feet.

Its pretty rare for an animal other than humans to transport fish. Its possible than osprey might drop a fish, or that an egg mass could get stuck to the foot of a wading bird and get deposited alive somewhere else, but these types of things have an extremely low probability of happening. Only those fish species that have sticky eggs are likely to be moved by birds. There are no records of fish introductions by birds, but the possibility has not been disproved.

Tornados occcasionally cross water bodies and siphon small fish and dump the fish elsewhere, but this happens in the US only a few times per century, and the fish don't usually travel very far from their source. There are a few documented cases of fish showing up on the ground following tornados, but it is no known if this mechanism has ever introduced fish to a new water body.

Answer 4

If there was at some time a connection to other watercourses, it is possible without human intervention. It doesn't take much. A flood can connect isolated water bodies. Geologic changes can also isolate formerly connected water bodies. Some anadromous fish have fresh-water-only analogues - Steelhead and Rainbow Trout, for example - due to huge changes in the Earth's formation and constant transformations.

Either connected to other water courses, even in the distant past, or human intervention. No such thing as eggs attached to bird's legs surviving the desiccating flight.

But I do believe in magic!

Answer 5

They can get into ponds if there is a feeder stream or a flood from a nearby water course. I suppose it's plausible that eggs could be transported via water fowl. Eels will travel across land to search for water.

Answer 6

In our forest preserves we have restored many marshes, both large and
small, that had been drained or partially drained by former owners of
the land. By blocking tile drains and building low dams at the natural
outlets from valleys or low wet areas, we not only have restored old
marshes but have created many new lakes, lagoons, ponds and
sloughs.

Such areas soon become populated with aquatic plants and animals.
Then they attract many kinds of wildlife that come there to drink,
bathe, prey and feed, or build their homes. Such areas have life, beauty
and interest the whole year round. We call them "Wildlife Oases". But
they present one problem, important in a county of 4,500,000 people:
mosquitoes.

Fortunately, the Chicago region has a fish immigrant from the
southern state with which we control the mosquitoes that breed in such
waters. It is the Mosquitofish, or Gambusia, one of the little
topminnows or killifishes, and a near relative of the guppies,
swordtails and moons -- popular aquarium fishes also from warmer
climates. Like them, and unlike the other native killifishes of the
northern states, the young of the Gambusia are born alive. It is called
the mosquitofish because, more than any other kind, it regularly feeds
among trash and vegetation in shallow water and along shores where
mosquitoes breed.

It was first successfully introduced into northern Illinois in 1923, when
some of these fish were brought from a pond on the campus of
Southern Illinois Normal University, at Carbondale, and placed in a
garden pool in Winnetka, a north shore suburb of Chicago.
Carbondale, over 300 miles south, is near the northern limit of the
Gambusia's normal range.

In 1928 and 1929, more of these little fish from the Carbondale pond
were placed in ponds on golf courses near Chicago by the DesPlaines
Valley Mosquito Abatement District; but none survived in a winter.
So, in 1933, this organization obtained mosquitofish from the
Winnetka pool and placed them in ponds in our forest preserves and
elsewhere. Enough of these survived and multiplied so that these
ponds have served as hatcheries for further distribution of this hardy
"naturalized" northern strain, obtained by unique good fortune from
one or more rare individual fish adapted to survive long winters
beneath the ice. Since 1941, some of this same strain have been
successfully planted in a variety of Michigan waters as far north as the
Straits of Mackinac.

The two sexes of the mosquitofish are more strikingly different in size
than any other native fish. The mature female is usually less than two
inches long but she is twice as long and about ten times as heavy as
the mature male. Females usually produce 3 or 4 broods in a season
and an average of about 50 young per brood, but exceptionally large
females may give birth to broods of 300 young. Apparently,
mosquitofish do not often live longer than two years.

Mosquitoes lay little raft-like masses of eggs on the surface of water.
These hatch out larvae which must come frequently to the surface to
breathe. After they become pupae, the pupa dangles from the surface
film of the water by a tube thru which it breathes. Mosquitofish have
upturned mouths, and they work along the surface, gobbling down
mosquito eggs, larvae and pupae. In some waters these fish multiply
until they not only effectively control mosquitoes but also serve as an
important item of food for hook-and-line fish. It may develop that the
introduction of Gambusia into waters of the "vacation regions" of the
northern states may accomplish more, in two ways, to increase the
pleasure of vacationists than many more expensive programs of fish
management and of mosquitofish control.

Water plus Gambusia equals recreation minus mosquitoes.

Answer 7

when it floods water courses link up and fish are flushed from one pool to another. when the water dries up these fish are then trapped in the isolated pools.

Answer 8

You put some fish in the pond and the birds and the bee's take it from there

Answer 9

the eggs are more likely to be attached to pond weed that gets transports from pond to pond.

Answer 10

other than someone putting fish in themselves,ain't got a clue.also,what the hell is bamma going on about?