It's the sort of fish story that Jan Bailey, of North Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada, will be telling for a long time to come. She saw a
tropical fish drop from a cedar tree in her back yard. Her husband went
to check out her story and found the fish covered with cedar needles, but
unbelievably, still alive. They dug out
Midas Cichlid (Photo by Riccardo Speziari/Creative Commons via Wikimedia) an old aquarium for the wayward
fish that has since been dubbed "Lucky."
Bailey contacted her friend, Cindy Wilkinson, to tell her the strange tale of the flying fish. Wilkinson called her friend, Linda Taylor, who knows something about fish. Together, with the help of a local pet store, the three determined that the fish was a Midas Cichlid.
Taylor has set Lucky up in his own 30-gallon aquarium, complete with pH-balanced water, plants and an aerator. Since cichlids can be aggressive, he has no tank mates to contend with.
It is still a mystery how the fish managed to fall from a tree. They theorize that the fish may have come from an aquarium being cleaned or an outdoor pond when a bird of prey decided that it looked like a tasty tidbit. The bird might then have dropped the bird over the Bailey's cedar tree.
Lucky has turned from bright orange to pale peach and Taylor is keeping an eye on his health. She has saved a lot of fish in her day, but never a cichlid -- and certainly never one that has fallen from a tree.
The mission of the women now is to find the original owners of the fish. Since it is a unique fish, it is unlikely that very many people in the Vancouver area could be missing one.
Source: The Vancouver Sun
