Pacific White-Sided Dolphin

Pacific white-sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens)

Pacific white-sided dolphins with distinctive multi-coloured pattern
  
These beautiful creatures stay in the same pod for life



If you happened to be one of the lucky passengers on a BC ferry travelling between Powell River and Comox this past Christmas morning, you most likely witnessed an incredible sight swimming alongside! A huge pod of several hundred Pacific white-sided dolphins were seen for about five minutes which is very rare because these mysterious creatures usually travel in much smaller pods of around ten to fifteen.  They are known for being playful, social creatures and for approaching boats.

You can watch the video here: http://globalnews.ca/news/3148369/watch-large-pod-of-dolphins-spotted-swimming-along-b-c-ferry-on-christmas-day/.

Approximately 900,000 Pacific white-sided dolphins are found in the cool to temperate waters of the North Pacific Ocean, from Japan to North America and along the coast from Alaska to Baja, Mexico. They tend to travel in the same social group or pod their entire live, normally in numbers of 10-100 but sometimes in the thousands! They stay close to each other and are known to take care of injured or sick pod members. They distinguish each other with a unique name-whistle.
These dolphins have an interesting pattern of white, light gray and dark gray colours. Their chin, stomach and throat are white; their beaked nose, back and dorsal fin are dark gray; and they have light gray patches along their sides and a light gray stripe that goes from above their eye to below their dorsal fin. The oldest recorded female dolphin is 46 and the oldest male is 42. Females give birth to calves after a gestation period of about a year, and then nurse them for eight to ten weeks. In British Columbia, newborn calves which are about one metre long and 33 pounds heavy, are usually spotted in the summer months between June and August.
Pacific white-sided dolphins use their approximately sixty teeth to eat salmon, squid, Pacific sardines, herring, pollock, capelin, rockfish, hake, cod and other small fish. Transient orcas and sharks prey on dolphins. In BC, transient whale pods were known to devise a trick to catch these fast moving creatures by trapping them in a bay where they would surround them, but the smart dolphins figured it out and have not been seen fooled by this manouever since.
In the 1980s, large numbers of these dolphins were killed because of Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese squid drag-net fisheries which were fortunately stopped after a 1982 United Nations resolution. In the late 1990s, there was another significant drop in numbers probably due to salmon fisheries’ use of sonic sound deterrents meant to keep seals and sea lions away. Dolphins are very sensitive to noise pollution and still unfortunately fall victim to Japanese drag nets. The good news is that they are not endangered!

https://www.vanaqua.org/learn/aquafacts/cetaceans/pacific-white-sided-dolphin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_white-sided_dolphin