Off-Course Sunfish Dies In Neuse

November 30, 2004

Release from: Sue Book
New Bern Sun Journal (North Carolina)

A Mola mola up the river is a fish out of water, so to speak, and the huge ocean sunfish that appeared late Sunday near the Neuse River banks five miles east of New Bern did not make it through the night.

"I bet that is the furtherest up the estuary we've ever documented a Mola mola," said ichthyologist Wayne Starnes, research curator of fish for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science in Raleigh. He identified the fish from photos and verbal description and said he is "98 percent sure it is a Mola mola" rather than a sharp tail mola, the other large member of the sunfish family.

"I think it's an all-time inland record," he said, of the fish belonging to the species of which others were spotted in January 2003 off Cape Lookout and near Surf City in 2002. A sharp tail was reported north of Hatteras in February 2003.

The 6 1/2-foot, several hundred-pound fish usually lives in warm and temperate areas of most oceans, swimming upright and feeding on jellyfish, small fish, crustaceans, or crabs, said Neuse RiverKeeper Larry Baldwin, who was called by residents in the Neuse Bluffs area.

But the sunfish was on its side Monday morning as Baldwin pushed the scaleless body -- still with skin rough enough to cut his hand -- close to shore for cameras.

It measured 64 inches wide and 78 inches from fin to fin when Baldwin got dimensions and coordinates for Starnes late Monday.

Christine Lester, of Vida Road, spotted the bulge-eyed, small-mouthed sunfish as she walked along the Neuse River banks about 5 p.m. Sunday and said she "first thought it was a body floating in the water but realized it had fins."

"I called Rick (Lester) and he tried to push him back out into the river," she said. "My poor husband was frozen when he got out of the water. He was down there a good two hours."

The couple, married just a week ago, tried to reach an N.C. Wildlife agent Sunday night but got no answer, she said.

"He would blow water out his spout," Christine Lester said. "Rick would lift him out into the water with his hands and he would come right back up to shore."

According to Mola mola data posted at www.fishbase.org, the fish often drifts at water surface on its side or swims close to the surface, making its dorsal fin visible above the water.

Starnes said the species can get up to 11 feet long and weigh up to 4,400 pounds, so this one was probably only half grown.

"They are not indigenous to this area but it is my understanding they have been near here before," said Baldwin.

Why the fish was so far up river remains a mystery, but cold weather may have killed it.

"I don't know what would get them (molas) but there is some mortality in these each winter," said Starnes. "I'd say it was a winter kill, perhaps from a cold upwelling. Most of them we see are stressed out. I don't know what kind of disorientation would bring an ocean fish this far inside."

"It's an interesting looking fish. People who work with fish love to see them," said Charles Manooch, a former National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration scientist who documented the Atlantic fisheries in his book Fisherman's Guide: Fishes of the Southeastern United States.

"Where I'd encounter them would be offshore, mostly up offshore in the winter time. I've never seen one inside like that," said Manooch, who said whenever the fish was encountered "they would come close to the boat, drifting as much as swimming. It was really special for all of us."