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SEATTLE — A Seattle-based ecotourism group says the effects of global warming may be responsible for a unique sighting in the usually chilly northwest coast waters of the Salish Sea, south of Victoria.

The Pacific Whale Watch Association says people aboard a whale watching expedition off Port Angeles, Wash., on Saturday saw a small school of what are believed to be short-beaked common dolphins.

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The dolphins rarely venture north of California, and a naturalist aboard the expedition snapped a photo when she realized the creatures were not their Pacific white-sided cousins, found along the Washington state and B.C. coasts.

If the school is confirmed, association officials say it could be the first-ever sighting of the speedy mammals in the Salish Sea, around the southern tip of Vancouver Island.

The association says a number of short-beaked common dolphins were spotted off the B.C. coast last September, but those two schools were about 75 kilometres southwest of Vancouver Island near the continental shelf.