Diver comes face-to-face with giant sunfish in the rare encounter:

Video Credit: Miguel Pereira

Two fishermen found a huge sunfish washed up on a deserted beach in South Australia. The giant sunfish is believed to be around 2.5m in length and weighed several hundred kilograms.

Supervisor Steven Jones was out with his fishing team at of Goolwa Pipico when he discovered the sunfish 25 km east of the River Murray mouth.

Linette Grzelak, partner of Steven Jones shared pictures of the sunfish to Facebook with the caption:

‘A sunfish found by my partner along the Coorong a couple [of] nights ago… I thought it was fake,’

‘They thought it was wood as they were driving up,’

The pictures of the huge sunfish left everyone shocked. One wrote: ‘I really hope this was not as a result of Seismic Blasting and or noise from ships, or plastic in their body.’

Another said: ‘So beautiful, I love sunfish’

One asked: ‘what did it die from?’

 

So many sunfish are getting washed up on the beach and Fish collection manager Ralph Foster, from the South Australian Museum, explains why it is happening:

‘One of the big dangers would be hit by big boats at sea. They often eat plastic bags thinking they are jellyfish which can kill them.’

‘They are actually quite common in Australian waters but they are generally further out to sea.’

 

 

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