How Many Dolphins Make Up a Pod?
We all love watching dolphins swim in the ocean, and to see one is a special treat. If we’re lucky, we might see two or three, or even four or five swimming together. A pod of dolphins is the next level to seeing only one. But what about when you see what look like hundreds of dolphins, all swimming in the same direction, seemingly with purpose — or is that porpoise?
Ten days ago, Evan Brodsky, boat captain and videographer with Monterey Bay Whale Watch and his crew were on a whale-watching tour off the California coast when instead of the gray whales they were seeking, they came across a very large pod of dolphins. What started out as about 15 dolphins soon became what Brodsky estimated was a pod of more than 2000.
“I kind of just take a glance and scan the horizon, and maybe about a mile and a half from us the water literally looked like it was boiling,” Mr. Brodsky told the New York Times. “It was foaming. There were so many dolphins there.”
Brodsky added that in the past he had seen hundreds, and sometimes thousands of dolphins, in a pod. This was the first time he had seen this many “northern right whale dolphins, mixed in with Pacific white-sided dolphins.” He captured the footage below of the pod and shared it on the Monterey Bay Whale Watch Instagram page.
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According to the director of conservation biology at the National Marine Mammal Foundation, Dorian Houser, it is rare to encounter such a large number of northern right whale dolphins in a single pod.
“The groups I have typically encountered are much smaller,” Dr. Houser told the Times. He suggested that the dolphins were treated to an “abundance of food” that led the large group to merge in this one area.
This story reminded us of a similar experience had by the crew aboard Call of the Sea’s schooner Seaward as they made the bash back from their charter season in Mexico to San Francisco Bay in April 2020. If memory serves, Seaward was sailing parallel to the coast in a similar area when the crew saw what appeared to be hundreds of dolphins swimming toward them, from the shore out to sea. Some dolphins stayed to play in the bow waves for short times, but the majority came straight toward Seaward and swam under her keel with such speed and determination, one could wonder if they even saw the boat.
(Please forgive the unprofessional video.)
Has anything like this ever happened to you?
I’d rented a small Beneteau, to take a break from a family gathering. Sailing back from Pt. Dume to Marina Del Rey in 2010, there were many hundreds of sea lions headed en masse west, at speed, from the shore. We were surrounded for easily 10 minutes. My guests from Mobile Bay were astounded.