A miles-long cluster of dolphins has been filmed leaping and gliding across Carmel Bay off the central coast of California, forming an unusual “super pod” of more than 1,500 of the marine creatures.
“They were on the horizon I feel like as far as I could see,” said Captain Evan Brodsky, with the Monterey Bay Whale Watch, who captured drone footage of Friday’s huge gathering of Risso’s dolphins.
The sighting was rare, as Risso’s dolphins typically travel in groups of only 10 to 30 animals, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Photo: Evan Brodsky, Monterey Bay Whale Watch via AP
From an about 6m-long inflatable boat, Brodsky and a small team out searching for gray whales watched mesmerized as the dolphins jumped out of the bay, peeking around as they leaped in the air. This type of dolphin with its stocky body and bulbous head can weigh as much as 499kg and reach up to 3.9m long.
Colleen Talty, a marine biologist on the trip to track the annual migration of gray whales headed to breeding lagoons off Mexico’s Baja California coast, called it “pretty amazing” to see more than 1,500 dolphins cavorting all around their boat.
Some were even swimming at the front of the vessel and using the waves to propel them forward, a technique known as bow riding, she said.
Photo: Evan Brodsky, Monterey Bay Whale Watch via AP
“They were just having a great time. So they were breaching everywhere ... tail slapping, coming right over to the boat. They looked like they were having a big party,” she said.
The large mix of adult and juvenile dolphins was likely the result of several pods coming together and swimming south, she said.
Although this is not the first time they have seen this large of a group, it is not a common occurrence, Talty said.
The Monterey coastline is a particularly ideal location to spot the dolphins because they prefer extremely deep water.
The area’s underwater submarine canyon means they may swim much closer to shore than elsewhere along the California coast, Talty said.
The team did not initially grasp the sheer size of the super pod that appeared on Friday morning, thinking there were only several hundred dolphins.
“Once we put the drone up, I was just blown away... I kept saying: ‘Look at my screen. Look at my screen. Look how many there are,’” Brodsky said. “It just blows my mind every time. It never gets old.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS