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'600-Pound' Ocean Sunfish Rescued by Volunteers After Getting Stuck in Nantucket Harbor

A 600-pound ocean sunfish, also known as a Mola mola, was rescued by a team of volunteers in Nantucket, Massachusetts, after the fish became cold stunned and stuck in a harbor on November 18.

Video recorded by Rain Harbison shows the ocean sunfish, one of the largest bony fish in the ocean, being lowered into open water with the assistance of a truck.

“Because the sun and tide were dropping, we didn’t have time to do a boat rescue,” Harbison told Storyful.

After being alerted about the cold-stunned fish in the harbor, Harbison and her team members at the Marina Mammal Alliance Nantucket worked together to ensure the safety of the creature.

Harbison contacted an expert on ocean sunfish, who advised that it “could live out of water for 15 minutes tops, but if we poured seawater in its gills we could add a little time to that.”

Local news reported that heavy ocean sunfish required four people to load it onto the truck.

“I used my watering cans, from my gardening business, to hydrate it with sea water [while we drove] it through the town and to the open ocean,” Harbison said. “We got it into the ocean less than 12 minutes after we hauled it out.” Credit: Rain Harbison via Storyful

Video transcript

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