Look at a bottlenose dolphin and it looks like its grinning. Who would know that beneath that cute exterior could lie a maniacal killer of their relatives, harbor porpoises?
Marine biologists believe they have found a vital clue in the increasing number of dead harbor porpoises that have been washing up on California shores over the last five years. In September, in concert with Okeanis, a nonprofit conservation group based in Moss Landing, marine biologists captured the only video footage taken in Monterey Bay of bottlenose dolphins attacking and killing a harbor porpoise.
Okeanis is collaborating with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, the Marine Mammal Center, Long Marine Lab and the Moss Landing Marine Mammal Center on this research. Scientists are trying to determine why the normally docile dolphins are attacking the smaller porpoises.
While the porpoise bodies gave some indication that they were being attacking, with internal bleeding and raked sides, there was no clear evidence, until now, that the dolphins were attacking them. Scientists had suspected it, however.
The attack was filmed in the waters off Capitola, CA. The video shows a group of male dolphins attacking a porpoise as it tries to flee. The dolphins surrounded the porpoise, rammed it with their beaks, scraped and raked it with their teeth and attempted to drown the porpoise by jumping on top of it.
The dolphins exhibited still more amazing behavior once the porpoise was dead. They brought the carcass to researchers, watched them bring it on board and then swam away.
Dolphins and porpoises are related, both being cetaceans, just as whales are, but they are different. The friendly face of "Flipper," the TV and movie cetacean, is a bottlenose dolphin.
Written by Michael Santo
Exclusively for HULIQ.com
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