A routine boat ride across Long Island Sound turned into an unexpected wildlife encounter.
Sean Healy, a facilities assistant with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, spotted dolphins on Sept. 4 while piloting a boat from Falkner Island in New Haven County toward Stony Creek in Branford to get fuel and have work done on the vessel. He said "more than 20" of the aquatic mammals suddenly "popped up" and began swimming around him.
"I was very surprised because I heard them before I saw them. So they came up next to our boat, and they breathed out, and it's a very distinct sound," Healy said. "I just was going along at like five miles an hour, and saying like just behind the group, and I was watching. There was different little groups like connecting, and they were all in a line basically, and heading west."
Healy said this was the first time he had seen wild dolphins in 26 years on the Long Island Sound. Last year, acting director of the Long Island Sound Partnership, Nicole Tachiki, told CT Insider that dolphin sightings could be a sign that the health of the Long Island Sound is improving. Bill Lucey, who works as a soundkeeper (someone responsible for engaging the public and stopping pollution) for Save the Sound, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the health of the Sound, said chlorophyll levels in the Long Island Sound have also increased, indicating that more plankton have been spawning. The plankton becomes food for the fish that porpoises, whales and dolphins prey on.
"They're feeding, so there must be something for them to eat," Healy said.
Dolphins aren't the only aquatic animal to give boaters a surprise in recent weeks. In late August, a hammerhead shark was spotted at Black Point in Niantic Bay.
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This article originally published at More than 20 dolphins surround boat in Long Island Sound.