Today was a rare treat, we had pacific white-sided dolphins just outside the harbour! As our boats approached Dodd narrow there was much activity as a pod of pacific white-sided dolphins was racing for false narrows.

Pacific white-sided dolphins are reported frequently at the north end of Vancouver Island near Campbell river. There are a few reports of them near the Sunshine Coast every year, and every now and then we hear of them coming further south into our range, but today we got to see them with our own eyes.

Pacific white-sided dolphins, or Lagenorhynchus obliquidens, are small whales belonging to the family Delphinidae, and the parvaorder Odontoceti, the toothed whale order. Pacific white-sdied dolphins are smaller cousins of the orca, the largest dolphin and the most common one we see on our trips. These small whales travel in large groups ranging in size from 10-100 individuals, but have been recorded traveling in groups of over 1000.
An adult pacific white-sided dolphin can grow to be 5.5-8 feet long, weigh as much as 400 lbs and can live up to 40 years. These dolphins are known for bow-riding and their incredible acrobatics as they travel around at seeds of 25 km/hr. They hunt small schooling fish and squid primarily and need to consume 20lbs of food per day to keep their energy up.
20 lbs of food doesn’t sound like much, but compared to their weight they eat quite a lot. That’s about 5 lbs for every 100 lbs of body weight. If an orca consumed this much food they would need about 600 lbs of food per day, twice what the average orca actually consumes. All this food is burned quickly as the small dolphins zip around the waters at high speeds. Pacific white-sided dolphins have 23-36 pairs of small conical teeth that they use to grip their food. They don’t chew and swallow their food like we do, instead they use their teeth to hold their prey before swallowing them whole.
These little whales can have a single calf every 3-4 years after a 9-12 month gestation period. The young weigh about 30 lbs and are 3-4 feet long and will rely on moms milk for up to 18 months after birth.

After seeing our Pacific white-sided dolphins we continued our journey south, stopping to see harbour seals on rocks, sealions snoozing on log booms, and a plethora of different birds.

Pacific white-sided dolphin Nanaimo dolphin whale — Photo by Rebecca Stirling.

After seeing these guys we traveled through the Gulf Islands and the Strait of Georgia scanning for whales. With many other whale watching vessels on the water we had hoped someone would find whales, but sadly there was no luck.

Even though we technically saw whales today, (Pacific white-sided dolphins, like Orca, are members of the toothed whale family), we felt it wasn’t the experience our guests were hoping for, and so we gave gave out vouchers for a return trip on us for a chance to see our orca or humpbacks in the future.

Today’s photos were taken by Marine Naturalists Rebecca Stirling and Janine Van Der Linden.