Fisherman finds dead sunfish washed up on southern Lowlands Beach in Youngs Siding

A dead sunfish was discovered washed up on a secluded beach in Youngs Siding, west of Albany, on Tuesday afternoon.

Local resident Jason Fowler was fishing with his family on southern Lowlands beach when he discovered the carcass of the aquatic giant.

“I looked down the beach and thought, ‘oh, what is that huge, big thing on the beach?’,” he said.

“After we caught no fish, I thought I’d better go down and have a look and was very surprised to find a giant sunfish dead on the beach.”

Measuring about 2.5m in length and 1.5m in height, the large body of the fish can be seen from the lookout 500m away.

Named for its habit of basking in the sun’s heat near the surface, sunfish are found in tropical and moderate waters.

They have unique round bodies composed of a cartilage skeleton with rudder-like fins on their top and bottom, beak-like fused teeth, and fewer vertebrae than other bony fish, lacking ribs, pelvic fins, and a swim bladder entirely.

Mr Fowler believes the fish died in the water and washed up on the beach — which is accessible only by a difficult four-wheel-drive track — sometime during the last few days, because it wasn’t there on his trip last week.

Nine slender sunfish were found washed up on Goode Beach in 2023. The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development has received several reports of sunfish strandings on the southern coast in past years, including a similar occurrence at Goode Beach and other Albany locations in 2016.

Historically there were also reports of 24 sunfish being stranded at the Whaling Station in 1966.

The department has been contacted for comment.