Dolphin pod delights BC Ferries passengers off Vancouver Island (VIDEO)

Nov 18 2022, 10:01 pm

Passengers aboard a BC Ferries vessel were recently treated to a breathtaking sight when a pod of about 100 dolphins began swimming in the boat’s wake.

Simone Thom captured video of the dolphins from the ferry travelling between Comox and Powell River.

“Perks of the job,” Thom captioned the video.

The dolphins can be seen breaching the surface in small jumps, going as fast as the boat.

The animals are Pacific white-sided dolphins, UBC professor and director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit Andrew Trites told Daily Hive. They’re relatives of orca whales and are built for speed — they’re capable of going faster than a ferry, but they sometimes like to catch a boat’s wake and play in it.

“We know that ferries are very noisy machines, but they’re still drawn into them,” Trites said. “The people on that boat must have had a real thrill to see that happen. Just to see how much life is out there.”

White-sided dolphins are one of the more interactive species, Trites said. Sometimes they’ll come to the bow of a boat to look at people, and they’re also quite acrobatic — able to jump very high in the air.

More than a dozen dolphins are visible at the surface of the water, but Trites said there are certainly many more below; he estimated the size of the pod at about 100 animals.

He’s never seen that many together in the Salish Sea before. There are resident white-sided dolphins between Vancouver Island and the Mainland, but they tend to stay in smaller groups. He guesses this pod is an open-ocean group that’s visiting the Salish Sea.

“When I see this sort of footage, it’s further confirmation that the Salish Sea is our Serengeti. We’ve got so much wildlife here,” he said. “Keep your eyes open. You never know when you’re going to have an incredible wildlife encounter.”

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