BBC NEWS Magazine has an obituary:
While some [goldfish] would have been cherished and lived for 20 years or more, others undoubtedly perished before they even made it to a tiny underwater castle in a bowl on the sideboard.Whatever happened to goldfish eating contests?
Their future is to be sealed by proposed laws forbidding the giving of animals as prizes.
As well as worries about the standard of their care while waiting for their new home and, indeed, once they found it, the government believes winning an animal as a prize is 'not thought to be consistent with a responsible approach to becoming an owner'.
As one commentator remarked: '[The new owner] may be good at darts or hoop-la, but that does not qualify them as fish-keepers.'
