A species of dolphin has been discovered in B.C. waters for the first time — alive.

Two small schools of short-beaked common dolphins have been confirmed about 75 kilometres off southwestern Vancouver Island. The only prior record of the species on the west coast of Canada has been three dead animals found over a period of more than 60 years.

“It was a big surprise that they were out there,” John Ford, a research scientist with the federal fisheries department, said Wednesday.

Brian Gisborne, who is contracted to federal fisheries and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to look for marine mammals on the west coast, discovered the two small schools of dolphins hours apart on Sept. 29 near the continental shelf. The second school of nine animals approached his boat and rode the bow wave, allowing him to take photos and accurately identify the species.

In 2013 off the entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait near Victoria, Gisborne discovered only the second endangered northern right whale in B.C. in 62 years.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature rates the short-beaked common dolphin as a species of least concern, meaning they are not threatened.

Ford said in an interview from the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo that short-beaked common dolphins generally do not venture north of California, but that unusually warm ocean conditions this year may have attracted them into B.C. waters.

“It’s no doubt related to the appearance of the species up here,” he said. “If we have this El Nino coming in as strong as expected we can probably expect ongoing interesting encounters with warm-water species of marine life.”

An adult short-beaked common dolphin was discovered dead on a Victoria beach in 1953, followed by an adult found floating in Nuchatlitz Inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1994, and a beach-worn skull in the Skedans Islands of Haida Gwaii in 2011.

According to the Royal B.C. Museum Handbook, the Marine Mammals of B.C., short-beaked common dolphins grow up to about 2.3 metres and 200 kilograms. The species has a criss-cross colour pattern that forms an hourglass motif on its sides. The back portion of the hourglass is dark brownish-grey while the front portion between the eye and dorsal fin is light tan or yellowish-tan.

The dolphins feed on a wide variety of small schooling fish, including anchovy, sardine and herring, as well as squid, and are frequently caught in net fisheries.

The related long-beaked common dolphin was first recorded in B.C. waters in 1993 and as recently as 2003, although two were observed in nearby Puget Sound in 2011. The B.C. coast is considered the northern extremity of the range of the species in the eastern North Pacific.

lpynn@vancouversun.com

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