The winner might end up being the loser?

We may have bigger fish to fry than to argue about a new license plate. But the new Minnesota plate that is adorned with a Mystery Fish, unveiled just before Thanksgiving, demands comment.

It's fishy, all right, but that ain't no fish you'd want to pull out of the water. This looks like the kind of "fish" that "fish" sticks come from.

I love the Reinvest in Minnesota license plates previously unveiled by the Department of Natural Resources -- the loon and the whitetail. For one thing, sales of these plates have raised $17.5 million to help acquire and protect critical habitat. For another, they let people driving sport-utility vehicles who have never seen a Blanding's turtle, a piping plover or a Higgin's eye clam believe that they are saving the planet. And without having to pay icky income taxes!

But this new plate has lost me. If I saw this mutant jumping out of the water, I wouldn't want to preserve it. I would want to poison the lake and kill it out, clear down to the bottom. And then restock it.

The new plate is supposed to convey a "northern" feel to suggest the majesty of life in the North Star State. It does no such thing.

It looks like a poster for a bass tournament in BubbaLand. It won't do much for our image when people from other states see us on the highway. Their kids, playing the license plate game, will shout, "Look! There's an enormous four-wheel-drive from some rube state with a fish of indeterminate species on the plate!"

The fish plate features some kind of amorphous cross between a bass and a walleye. Excuse me for saying it but the walleye is not only an official state symbol, but is also the engine that drives Minnesota's summer tourism industry. Why, on earth, would we not put a gol-darned genuine walleye on our license plate?

This is Minnesota, not Missouri. It looks as if someone didn't want to insult bass fishermen. Bass fishermen have funded the multimillion dollar wall-mounted singing fish industry. Walleyes don't sing.

Why the Mutant Minnow is jumping out of the water is not clear. Maybe it is trying to kill itself before it reproduces. Or maybe it's hungry, but the artist did not give us a bug or fly in the picture, although that problem will be solved by highway driving. Soon, the fish plates on the front of your car will be speckled with flat bugs.

The state had actual, identifiable species in consideration for its new plate -- including the walleye -- and I think they made a mistake. Critical habitat is not just what your kitchen turns into when you are late getting home from your fishing trip with your buddies. Critical habitat might be the last best hope for preserving the diversity of life in these parts. And we don't need fake fish to convince us. We need real ones.

There are more than 100 species of fish in Minnesota. The plates cost $40 the first year ($30 a year thereafter). That's real money, and you should get a real fish, one that has a name. By the way, if you could memorize all of our fish species, it'd be a neat party trick to recite them:

Alewife, bluegill, buffalo, bullhead, burbot, carp, catfish, coho, crappie, drum, emerald shiner, fathead, goldeye, herring, Iowa darter, Johnny darter, kiyi, logperch, muskie, northern, paddlefish, pumpkinseed, quillback, rainbow, redhorse, sauger, shiner, smallmouth, sturgeon, tullibee, whitefish, yellow perch.

And that's just a short list. There are lots more, including some that sound like the disagreeable people you will bump into while you're Christmas shopping at the mall: Tubenose goby, Sculpin, gizzard shad, hornyhead chub, largescale stoneroller, mooneye, stickleback, rosyface shiner, stonecat, bloater, madtom and the highfin carpsucker.

Hey, you. The line starts back there, you highfin carpsucker.

Besides the walleye, the other finalists for the new plate included a Lady's slipper, a moose, a black-crowned night heron and a wolf. All real, all passed up in favor of a Fantasy Fish urecognizable to school children. Too bad.

I am all for Reinvesting in Minnesota. We ought to do a lot more of it, and carry the battle beyond the bumpers of our gas guzzlers. But let's remember, it is not make-believe wildlife that is losing habitat and getting left by the roadside or floating upside down.

It is the real stuff.

Nick Coleman • ncoleman@startribune.com