I know this'll probably sound pretty awful, but even if the pond didn't suffer a major kill within a few years, it really wouldn't matter too much if the population got severely out of whack. I'm not planning to be in the area too long after I finish my masters degree, and the property owner isn't gonna care too much if the pond is healthy or not after I leave. He doesn't fish, and as I said before, if it gets stocked at all it'll be my doings, he's said he has no intention of stocking it. So, basically I have free reign to experiment as I please with it. With that in mind, I'm willing to take some big risks "in the name of science". If I throw some "atypical" species in there and something goes horribly awry in a couple or three years, nobody's really gonna mind. But if something that shouldn't work actually does, I can then try to figure out why it worked, and use that knowledge in the future. It's really a no-lose situation for all involved.
