We view pacific white-sided dolphins both in Knight Inlet on our grizzly bear tour as well as when whale watching in the area of Johnstone Straits.
Vancouver Aquarium’s AquaFacts provides the following interesting facts on their website:
“Pacific white-sided dolphins are found throughout the temperate waters of the North Pacific Ocean from Japan to North America, and from the coasts of Alaska down to Baja, Mexico.In the entire North Pacific, there are estimated to be approximately 900,000 Pacific white-sided dolphins. Dolphins travel in groups throughout their lives. In B.C., Pacific white-sided dolphins are usually encountered in groups of 10 – 100 animals, although some groups have been seen with 2,000 or more individuals.
Pacific white-sided dolphins eat herring, capelin, Pacific sardines, squid, anchovies, salmon, rockfish, pollock, hake and other small fish.Transient killer whales and sharks both eat Pacific white-sided dolphins.
When the dolphins first came back to B.C. waters, it took the killer whales a couple of years to figure out how to catch the fast-moving dolphins. Some killer whale pods drove groups of dolphins into small bays and killed them en masse but this behaviour is no longer as common, suggesting the dolphins have learned to avoid this trap.”
The viewing stands the Lodge uses after August 24th are in a good location on Knight Inlet’s Glendale River. There is water on three sides full of pink salmon and the grizzlies come to feed. As this photo shows they do pass directly beneath the stands as they move from one fishing spot to another. These two grizzlies do not appear very large because they are two-year-old cubs while one adult would be the size of the two cubs combined.
