Bottlenose   Dolphin

   These dolphin are in our water all year. The odds are 99% that any dolphin you see within two miles of shore, or in the sounds or rivers, is a bottlenose dolphin.

     Most dolphin you'll see are 7 to 10 feet in length. They might be anywhere from 4 to 15 feet. They might occassionally wander alone, or as pairs. More often they are in pods of 5 to 12, sometimes up to 20 in a pod. Sometimes a couple to ten or more pods join and more around as a herd with over a hundred dolphin. A pod might be made up of two or three family groups, or a group of unrelated, but usually same sex and same general age individuals.

We have four clearly distinct groupings of dolphin that are present in our waters are various times.

     Summer residents. These dolphin arrive in late spring and hang around mostly the coastal waters until early fall. They give birth and start raising their calves in our sounds and rivers. The south entrance to Core Creek is a nursery area. These dolphin mostly winter from Wilmington southward to Charleston.
     Winter residents. This group arrives in November and start departing by April. These dolphin generally spend their summers north of Cape Hatteras and into the Chesapeake Bay.
     The 3th & 4th Groups are the fall and spring transients. These dolphin are just passing through, maybe stopping in the area for a week or two.
     Sometimes a pair, small pod or family group might spend and entire year or even two in our waters, prompting some folks to refer to a 5th group, or permanent population.

     It is illegal for you to approach, chase or otherwise harass dolphin. Usually they move away if you try. It is not illegal for them to approach you...and they will when they are in groups with deep water nearby. They will come up to small boats, kayaks, surf boards, rafts and even someone just standing in the water. Position your kayak, or whatever, in front of the direction in which they appear to be heading. Then remain still and let them come to you and check you out. In over 15 years of kayaking these water, lots of dolphin have jumped near me. They have never landed closer than ten feet, and nevered flop-landed. When landing close, they do a 9.96 or better water entry. They have never jumped over my kayak. While sometimes swimming within inches, no dolphin has ever actually bumped or touched my kayak. Sometimes one or two appear to start charging the kayak on the surface, only to submerge at the last moment and rolling over on their backs as they pass just underneath the kayak.

     While I have never heard or read of it happening...anywhere, you should be aware that an adult dolphin is physically capable of biting off a hand or foot, or killing a person by ramming it with its beak as they do this with sharks, or grabbing and dragging you underwater.

     For some reason, this otherwise highly intelligent mammal, likes and is very gentle with all humans, while people and their activities kill thousands of dolphins. We are a dolphin's number one predator.