Large pod of Bottlenose Dolphin patrol surfline - 07:37 pm

08 Jun 2009

Running forty kilometres south this morning, we completed our first reconnaissance trip in search of the first pilot shoals of the sardine species that makes the sardine run an event each year, sardinops sagax. Nothing. As the south westerly wind moderated, we headed inshore and picked up a large pod of bottlenose dolphin, Tusiops truncatus, patrolling the outside edge of the surfline, in all likelihood a resident pod. Larger framed and bulkier than the common dolphin, Dephinus delphis, this species is well known on the east coast of South Africa, where one of its ‘forms’ or suspected sub-species is often seen playing in the surf close to shore. On sardine bait balls last year we occasionally saw the bottlenose dolphin in attendance, but very much paying a secondary role to the main driver and protagonist of these feeding events, the common dolphin.

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