Dolphins School Marine Students

When dolphins appeared last summer in Upper Newport Bay, they generally were viewed as a passing novelty. But inexplicably, at least one wayward dolphin stayed -- and attracted a loyal following.

Now, four months later, as mysteriously as it came, the dolphin has disappeared.

“We were lucky,” said Dennis Kelly, a marine science professor at Orange Coast College and director of the college’s Coastal Dolphin Survey Project.

“This [was] like the golden opportunity of all time to put my students to work.... For some reason, it finally decided to leave, but we’re going to keep looking for it.”

He first spotted an adult dolphin and a 2-year-old calf in July and returned to watch them every day until school started in the fall. Since then, two of his students -- Molly Kent and Bridget Ross -- had been monitoring the dolphins a few times a week.

“Our hypothesis,” Kelly said, “is that this was an older female, and it brought her calf in with her. She taught the calf how to feed.”

In September, when a dead dolphin washed up in Upper Newport Bay, Kelly and his students decided it was probably the mother of the calf because afterward, they noticed just one dolphin frequenting the area near the bridge.

And it was there every time they visited.

“This is the most unusual thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been studying this species along this coast for 28 years,” Kelly said.

Terese Pearson, whose family owns the Pearson’s Port fish and bait shop under the Pacific Coast Highway Bridge where the dolphin had been visiting, said it’s not unusual to occasionally spot dolphins there.

But for some reason, the wayward dolphin and others that had been visiting it didn’t leave.

“People just honestly forget that it’s the Pacific Ocean,” Pearson said of the bay. “There’s so much bait in the water for them to eat that there’s no reason for them [dolphins] to leave. It’s like being at a smorgasbord that just keeps on giving.”

Her theory may not be too off-base, Kelly said.

For the last two months, Kent and Ross have visited Pearson’s Port regularly to monitor and videotape the dolphins’ behavior and human interaction.

The dolphins attracted regular visitors, including kayakers hoping to see them up close. It’s against the law to feed or touch them in the wild.

“People try to swim with ... [them], and that’s just not right,” Ross said.

The students are working with the National Marine Fisheries Service to post a sign warning people of the law.

“It’s fine observing from a distance,” Kent said. “It’s the close encounters we want to avoid.”

The dolphins could be easily spotted from the bridge, between Bayside and Dover drives or from the area below, near Pearson’s Port.

But last week, when Kent and Ross went out for a routine visit, the dolphin was gone. They returned several more times but found nothing.

They brought out binoculars and ventured well beyond Pearson’s Port. They spotted one dolphin near the mouth of the harbor, but they don’t know if it’s the one they sometimes called Dex.

Since the dolphin went missing, Ross acknowledged, she and Kent have shed a few tears.

“It’s just like if your child didn’t come home without calling,” she said. “You don’t know if he’s dead on the side of the road or alive.”

Kelly said the dolphin probably just got tired of being a loner.

“Other dolphins were coming to visit, and they are very social animals,” he said. “My feeling is, they finally convinced him to join them.”

The students said they planned to write a paper using their research. And they haven’t given up hope that Dex will come back.

“I have been going up and down every nook and cranny of that harbor,” Kent said.

“It’s so silly. You just put so much into it. We’ve just really become attached to it in a funny little way.”