Dolphins nose about bay

Marisa O’Neil

Newport Beach’s newest celebrity residents have silky-smooth skin, a

weakness for smelt and have attracted plenty of attention -- possibly

some unwanted attention.

Two bottlenose dolphins have been milling about in the Back Bay

near the Pacific Coast Highway bridge for nearly three weeks,

something marine mammal expert Dennis Kelly said he’s never seen. But

since word got out about the dolphins, people have been rushing to

the spot, hoping for a close encounter.

That’s OK, so long as folks stay on shore, but once people enter

the dolphins’ domain, both the animals and the humans could get into

trouble, said Kelly, professor of marine biology at Orange Coast

College.

“It’s becoming a phenomenon,” Kelly said. “If everyone ends up

going into the harbor, swimming, snorkeling or paddling out in

kayaks, they will impede what [the dolphins are] doing.”

Not only that, but they could be violating federal law, he said.

The National Marine Fisheries Service asks that people stay at

least 50 yards away from dolphins, said Joe Cordaro, a wildlife

biologist for the agency. If people get closer and disrupt the

animals’ behavior, that’s against the law.

That means let feeding dolphins eat, which appears to be why they

are there.

“Anything that [the dolphins are] doing naturally and divert from

that because of a human presence, that would be a change in

behavior,” Cordaro said.

Officials with the Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol in

Newport Beach said they’re aware of the dolphins and haven’t had to

get involved or keep people away.

Kelly said he saw the two dolphins, which he said are likely an

adult and her 1-year-old calf hunting for fish in the area, earlier

this week. But when a group of observers drove by in a Duffy boat,

they unwittingly broke up the school of fish the dolphins were

feeding on.

People who do go out on the water, he said, should just pass them

or observe from a distance and not try to interact with them, feed

them or pet them -- as tempting as that might be.

“I was down there the other day, and several people were basically

chasing them around in kayaks,” Kelly said. “Every time they popped

up, they’d paddle over in that direction. You can’t do that. You

can’t harass these animals.”

More people have been renting kayaks with the hopes of seeing the

dolphins, said Alex Yerkes with Southwind Kayaks, near the dolphins’

feeding spot.

“People really want to see them,” said Laurie Keys at the Newport

Aquatic Center. “A little girl and her dad came here [Tuesday], and

they’d never been kayaking. They saw the dolphins, and the little

girl was so excited.”

The aquatic visitors have attracted so much attention, the Back

Bay Science Center is offering special boat excursions this weekend.

The public can come, observe the dolphins from a safe distance and

hear facts about the species, said John Scholl, environmental

scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game.

In his 27 years of researching and observing local dolphins, Kelly

said, he’s never seen any so far inside the harbor or staying in one

place for so long. He thinks they may have chased food to the Back

Bay, which has a large number of smelt for them to feed on.

The animals appear to be healthy and eating well, he said. Cordaro

said he thinks they’ll find their own way out when they want to.

Kelly called the event a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to

observe the dolphins in their natural habitat. Some of his

marine-biology students are recording their observations of the

animals from the shore.

“Every once in a while, dolphins do very unusual things, which we

don’t expect, and this may be what’s happening here,” Kelly said.