Gold fish

Two facts. One, fish are (to an extent) trainable. Two, gold is valuable and often lies around in tiny pieces in rivers.

These two nuggets of information have formed the basis of MaxCo.'s latest venture.

We have trained, in the MaxCo. aquaria, a group of carp to pick up small gold grains and deposit them in a collection box. An optical sensor on the mouth of the box detects the characteristic reflections of gold, and releases a single food pellet every time a gold grain is received.

For a long time, we had many hungry carp. After a few weeks, however, one member of the school picked up the technique, and now about 50% of the fish have learned by imitation.

In a few more weeks, we will release these fish into a secret location - a bendy river in a certain part of Wales. Collection boxes, identical to that in the MaxCo. aquarium and primed with succulent carp-food, will be dotted along the margins of the river.

We believe that our initial cohort of trained carp will breed, and that their descendents, as well as their wild counterparts, will continue to collect the small grains of gold which are otherwise too dispersed to be worth panning for.

MaxCo. is also seeking to recruit a tropical fish expert and a geologist with a working knowledge of the distribution of alluvial diamonds.