Our good friend Sandy Dildine of the Laguna Blue Belt Coalition was kind enough to share this story with us.

“Last week witnessed an amazing thing on a walk on the beach at Crystal Cove.   At the far south end near the tunnel at El Moro we came upon ~15 dolphins floating about 20 yards off shore.  They were moving very slowly along the beach and staying close together.  We thought this was probably a birthing circle where the dolphin pod protects the dolphin in labor- apparently there's even a dolphin “midwife” who aids in getting the baby to the surface for it’s first breath. 

We thought we might have figured out which one was in labor because it seemed to be moving the least and always had one or two dolphin’s right with it. I had heard that dolphins gave birth at Crystal Cove but it was really an amazing thing to see part of it.” 

It takes 1 to 3 hours for the baby to be born. The length of a dolphin’s pregnancy is generally 11 to 12 months long. Most in most species female dolphins reach sexual maturity at about 7 years old. And the males are sexually mature at about 10 years old. The dolphin calves will stay with their mothers for five or more years.

We are looking very closely at the ocean now. There have been other sightings of birthing circles in the past 3 weeks.

Here is the photo Sandy captured. Enjoy!