I was thinking carp in the wild. I have not seen goldfish in the
wild...I am very open to hearing that they are schoolers in the wild.
In our pond, they do not seem to school, although sometimes a couple
will swim in parallel for a bit.

The only time I put one in the 'wild' (1969, before I realized the
problems of introducing exotics) it was eaten by ducks before it could
get out of the 60 yd shallows. Talk about heartbreak! Raised it 3
years through graduate school. Turned it into a large cemetery pond
where it could thrive...but it lasted maybe 1 minute. As soon as I
put it in, the ducks began heading for me (to eat duck food?). On the
way, they saw the gold flash and began chasing my naive fish. I
yelled and threw rocks...to no avail. I can still remember the duck
head going down and coming up with an 8" struggling fish! It shook
around until it could get it to slide down. Had I gun, then, the duck
would certainly have been a target. I felt terrible that my
liberation was to sudden death.

From the ecological perspective, the pond did not have run off, so the
fish would probably not have generated wild goldies in pennsylvania
waters...but that option was certainly eliminated quickly.

Jim