Stunning Dolphin Stampede Dazzles Southern California Whale Watchers

Hundreds of dolphins were recently captured on video stampeding across the ocean off the coast of southern California.

The moment was documented during a whale watching excursion ran by Capt. Dave’s Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari. The video goes on for several minutes, and shows dolphins launching out of the water, leaping several feet into the air and dazzling spectators aboard the boat.

Dolphins can achieve higher rates of speed by porpoising out of the water since there’s less resistance in air than in water, but it’s unknown why pods of dolphins exhibit this stampeding behavior together.

“It’s thought that the dolphins could be evading a predator such as orcas, racing to catch a food source, or meeting up with another pod of dolphins,” the charter company said in a statement.

This isn’t the first time this type of behavior has been witnessed off the Orange County coastline, either. A video recorded off Laguna Beach last year made news headlines when a pod of dolphins was caught ‘marching’ up the coast.

Southern California has the greatest density of dolphins per square mile of anywhere else on Earth, according to Capt. Dave’s Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari, including nearly 450,000 common dolphins – the species stampeding in the most recent video. Large mega-pods that can number in herds of up to 10,000 have also been spotted off the coast.

What do you think? Are these dolphins just having fun? Or do you think they have someplace to be?

OutdoorHub Editor: Keenan Crow

Keenan Crow is an outdoor writer who graduated from Central Michigan University with a degree in journalism and creative writing. He has been writing for OutdoorHub for nearly five years, but anybody he is close with will tell you he has been telling hunting stories for far longer. He uses his experiences outdoors to write about things he loves - bow hunting, fishing, upland hunting, shed hunting, turkey hunting, waterfowl hunting, dog training, shotguns, ATVs and the outdoor lifestyle he lives in his home state of Michigan. Outside of hunting/fishing, he also loves to cook - especially with wild game - play golf and go on hikes with his yellow lab, Stella.