Pelagic fishes - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 275

leased. Although we didn't weigh the mola before its release, we esti-
mated it to be around three hundred pounds. In just fourteen months
it had gained some two hundred and fifty pounds! That had to be one
of the fastest-growing fish in the world.
We began to have rather fearful visions of how immense a mola might
grow in a large exhibit tank with an unlimited supply of food. How
would we deal with such a large fish if it ever had to be moved?
In 1998 I found out for myself. On August 7, 1997, a young mola
weighing fifty-seven pounds was collected from Monterey Bay. It was
treated for parasites in quarantine, where it quickly learned to take
food from the hand. A month later it was moved to the new, million-
gallon Outer Bay exhibit, where its primary caretaker, Tim Cooke,
fed it shrimp, squid, and a nutritious gelatin-based blended food con-
taining fish fillet, squid, prawns, multivitamins, and amino acids. Like
our previous molas, it too had a phenomenal growth rate. After a year
the sta¤ realized that it would have to be released, and soon, before it
became too big to fit through the channel gate to the outside holding
pool.
By now it was six feet long, weighed an estimated six hundred pounds,
and was far too large to fit in the holding tank on the Lucile. An air
lift seemed the only way. John O'Sullivan constructed a large, strong,
frisbee-shaped lifting device that would support the mola lying flat on
its side. After obtaining permission from the Federal Aeronautics Board,
he then arranged for a helicopter to fly over the aquarium and pick the
mola up at dawn on November 4, 1998.
Everything went smoothly. Lured with food, the mola swam into the
holding pool, where it was quickly weighed. It then took only thirty
seconds for the helicopter to lift it from the pool and whisk it out over
the Bay to a waiting boat. The mola was lowered into the water, where
divers disconnected one side of the lifting bridle and watched as the fish
swam o¤ into the very sea it had come from fifteen months earlier.
As it turned out, we had greatly underestimated the weight of the
mola. Instead of the 600 pounds we'd guessed, it weighed a whopping
880 pounds—a far cry indeed from its original 57. Undoubtedly, if we
hadn't released it, it would have kept right on growing too.