Captain 'lost for words' after witnessing a super pod of more than 2,000 dolphins
Rarely seen northern right whale dolphins leapt and played next to the boat and as far as the eye could see
Evan Brodsky was scouting for sea creatures on Friday when he hit "the motherlode."
Brodsky, captain and videographer for a private boat tour company, was out on Monterey Bay south of San Francisco, Calif., on Friday when he and his colleagues found themselves surrounded by thousands of dolphins as far as the eye could see.
"I'm just kind of looking on the horizon, and the water looked like it was boiling hot water. It was just like foam and bubbles everywhere, there were so many dolphins," Brodsky, of Monterey Bay Whale Watch, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
"It was so amazing. We were just lost for words."
The massive convergence of dolphins is what's known as a super pod, and it's a rare sight to behold, even for someone whose entire job is to find and watch marine life.
But what made the sight even more special is that most of the animals were northern right whale dolphins, an elusive species usually only found in deeper waters.
Brodsky and his colleagues were in the company's scouting boat on Friday afternoon, scanning the seas for signs of life, when they came across a perfectly normal-sized pod of about 10 to 15 Pacific white sided dolphins, a common species to find in the area.
But the dolphins, it turns out, were on their way to a much bigger party — and they led the boaters right to it.
Riding parallel to the small group, they soon came upon the super pod. Based on drone footage, it appears to have included a few hundred Pacific whites, and an estimated 2,000 northern right whale dolphins, including mothers and their calves.
'Flying eyebrows' and 'little footballs'
Northern right whale dolphins are one of only two species of dolphins with no dorsal fins, and the adults are glossy jet back, like orcas, with white bellies.
"They're all smooth," Brodsky said in a separate interview with The Associated Press. "When they jump, they look like flying eyebrows."
The calves, he told CBC, are more of a "battleship grey" and look like "little footballs jumping out of the water next to mom."
Brodsky says they tried to give the dolphins space, staying about 100 metres away so as not to bother them or get in their way.
But boats, he says, make waves in the water behind them, called wakes, which the naturally curious and playful creatures love to "surf" on.
"So they swam right up to the boat," he said. "Like, we were looking down and they were right next to us. It was incredible."
Pacific white-sided dolphins usually travel in pods of between 10 and 100, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Northern right whale dolphins' pods tend to be bigger, between 150 and 300 — though they have been seen in super pods as large as 3,000.
Colleen Talty, a marine biologist with Monterey Bay Whale Watch, says there are a number of reasons dolphins might form a super pod like this one, including to fend off predators, feed on the same food, or simply to socialize.
Brodsky suspects, in this case, it was the latter, describing whales leaping into the air, popping their heads out of the water, and slapping their tails.
"It was a big, fun social event," he said.
Northern right whale dolphins are known to be highly social and often mix with other dolphin species. But, usually, they stick to deeper waters, which means tour boats don't happen upon them very often.
Talty says people come from around the world to try and get a glimpse of them in the bay's deep underwater canyons.
"We don't always see baby dolphins," she said, "so that's pretty nice."
It's a moment Brodsky says he'll never forget.
He filmed a group of about 1,500 Risso dolphins in the bay last month, making this his second encounter with a super pod since he started working with the company in 2022.
"Every time I see something like this it's like the first time," he said. "It never gets old."
With files from The Associated Press. Interview with Evan Brodsky produced by Livia Dyring
