Pelagic fishes - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 271

John Christiansen feeds an eager and cooperative ocean sunfish. (Photo
© 2000 Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation. All rights reserved.)
they would have plenty of room to swim around and could easily avoid
the walls.
In late summer and fall, when our warmest water temperatures usu-
ally occur, small molas—less than two feet long and weighing twenty
to fifty pounds—show up in Monterey Bay. We have no idea where
they come from or why they come here. Whatever the reason, it would
probably be a lot healthier for them if they didn't, since they invari-
ably fall prey to the hundreds of California sea lions that are also here
at that time of year. The agile pinnipeds catch the young molas and
then fling them about at the surface like frisbees, presumably trying
to break them up so they can eat parts of them. It is, at best, an ine‹cient
technique; we often see dead or dying molas on the bottom of the Bay
with their fins torn o¤ by sea lions. It's very sad to see a helpless mola
lying on its side, still breathing but unable to swim. Some years hun-
dreds of dead, undamaged molas have been seen on the bottom. Al-
though no one knows for sure, the assumption is that they come into