If you've had the good fortune of seeing Sunfish / Mola off the coast of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon or California, your photos will aid a research project to better understand these remarkable fish. A very exciting development is that it is now known that there are two species of Sunfish off the BC Coast - Mola mola (the Ocean Sunfish) AND, less commonly, Mola tecta (the Hoodwinker Sunfish).
 
We at the Marine Education and Research Society  have teamed up with Sunfish researchers Marianne Nyegaard, Tierney Thys and Tor Mowatt-Larssen in this Project to get a better sense of the distribution and relative abundance of both species. 
 
Please fill in one form for every encounter i.e. if you have seen Sunfish on more than one date / time, please fill in a new form for every sighting. We will ultimately provide feedback on your sighting and if it can be concluded if your sighting is of Mola mola or Mola tecta.
 
If you have any questions or problems in filling in this form, contact info@oceansunfishresearch.org.
 
Please know that if you have previously uploaded your sightings of Sunfish to iNaturalist, these are already part of the study and therefore need not be contributed again via this form. 

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* 1. Data contributor contact information:

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* 2. Date of this sighting (in format MM/DD/YYYY).
Please comment on your certainty that this is the correct date i.e is it exact or an estimated date.

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* 3. General location of the sighting e.g. northwest Hecate Strait, British Columbia

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* 4. Please specify the nearest State, Province or Territory to your sighting
e.g. Alaska = AK, British Columbia = BC.

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* 5. Please provide GPS coordinates for this sighting if you have them. It is extraordinarily helpful to have this information even if it is an estimate. 

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* 6. Are these GPS coordinates approximate or exact?

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* 7. Was the fish alive or dead?

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* 8. Please describe the encounter including number of Sunfish, fish behaviour, water temperature if known, and any other details you consider pertinent.

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* 9. If dimensions were taken, please provide here.

Photos
Up to 5 photos can be uploaded per sighting. Please know that, in particular, photos of the fish's tail may allow determination of species of Sunfish. Please fill in a new form for each encounter .

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* 10. If you have video files, please provide a download link to the file(s) here.

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* 11. Photo 1 (format PNG, JPG or JPEG)

PNG, JPG, JPEG file types only.
Choose File

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* 12. Name for photo credit if different from that provided in Question 1. 

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* 13. Photo 2 (format PNG, JPG or JPEG)

PNG, JPG, JPEG file types only.
Choose File

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* 14. Name for photo credit if different from that provided in Question 1. 

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* 15. Photo 3 (format PNG, JPG or JPEG)

PNG, JPG, JPEG file types only.
Choose File

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* 16. Name for photo credit if different from that provided in Question 1. 

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* 17. Photo 4 (format PNG, JPG or JPEG)

PNG, JPG, JPEG file types only.
Choose File

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* 18. Name for photo credit if different from that provided in Question 1. 

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* 19. Photo 5 (format PNG, JPG or JPEG)

PNG, JPG, JPEG file types only.
Choose File

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* 20. Name for photo credit if different from that provided in Question 1. 

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* 21. Please confirm that we may use your photo(s) for education and research purposes with photo credit as specified in the answers provided above.

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* 22. Have you submitted this Mola sighting to another sightings database (e.g., inaturalist.org or oceansunfish.org)? If so, which database(s)?"

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* 23. May we contact you via email with potential questions about your sightings  and/or to provide research updates e.g. confirmation of species ID and relaying when the study is published?

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