I want a balanced, natural pond that is a habitat for a wide variety of fish and wildlife. Part of that goal is to have turtles, snakes, birds, etc. I don't want an overabundance of turtles any more than I want overpopulated fish. If I'm very lucky the critters will balance themselves out, most likely I'll have to actively thin some critters myself.
Wild predators will eat some of my fish, and in theory these will be the inferior specimens and not the largest or strongest. For what it's worth, a snake that has to unhinge it's jaw to eat a fish will probably not eat again for weeks and maybe months. They don't burn many calories just laying there all day...
Let's see now, that's $.02 X 1000, I think that's twenty bucks worth of my opinion I've donated so far.
