Dolphins spotted south of Darien in Long Island Sound

DARIEN — Captain Hank Wawryck was taking his morning route to the Noroton Yacht Club when he noticed slick dolphins bobbing in and out of Long Island Sound.

Wawryck was about three miles south of Long Neck Point in Darien. It was around 7:30 a.m. when he snapped a photo and a video of the mammals.

A photo he sent Hearst Connecticut Media showed a handful of dolphins, but he said that was just a “small section of a big pod.”

He estimated there were about 50 dolphins in all heading east.

“It was a beautiful thing,” he said. Dolphins may be rare sights in the Sound, but the animal is actually native to the waters, according to SoundWaters President Leigh Shemitz. SoundWaters is an organization that educates the community about the Long Island Sound.

Shemitz isn’t sure exactly why the dolphins were in the sound, but it’s indicative of the body of water’s improving health.

“Most likely it’s because the waters are better than they’ve been and that’s a healthy thing,” she said.

“We don’t see enough dolphins here,” she added.

It could have been due to an abundance of fish — animals typically like to go where they can catch a good meal, Shemitz said. Wawryck agreed that there have been more fish in the area recently.

“They’re there because there’s prey to eat,” Shemitz said.

State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection spokesperson Will Healey said DEEP staff had not heard of the reported dolphin sighting, but “we do occasionally see dolphins in the Sound, usually during the colder months.”

Dolphins were also spotted off the coast of Norwalk and Westport in March.

The Long Island Sound can be a tough body of water for wildlife. Shemitz said the estuary is like a bathtub with very little flow and a lot of input from humans. “Everything drains into it,” she said. But if humans can collectively contain how much they put into the water, Shemitz said the water will be a better place for dolphins and marine life in general.

“It’s a sign of health, but it’s also a sign of what the natural world can mean to us,” Shemitz said. “We can forget it, we can overlook it. We’re busy with our screens and our lives, and then dolphins fly out of the water in a pod and everybody has a smile on their face.”

“There’s something to that,” she added.