
DATE: Saturday, July 26, 1997               TAG: 9707260815

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   47 lines

DAY OF THE DOLPHIN

If you notice folks along the Virginia Beach shoreline this morning with binoculars focused on the sea, they are not waiting for their ship to come in.

They are volunteers counting bottlenose dolphins in the fifth annual Virginia Marine Science Museum Stranding Team dolphin count.

More than 100 trained volunteers will be stationed at 39 different land-based observations points, about one mile and a half apart along the entire Virginia coastline from Maryland to North Carolina. Three boats also will be working offshore.

Yearly dolphin surveys provide information about the abundance and distribution of dolphins in Virginia waters, said Mark Swingle, stranding team coordinator. The most important information gleaned from the four-year count is that 75 percent of the big marine mammals in Virginia are found off Virginia Beach's coastline.

``It really emphasizes how critical Virginia Beach is to dolphins,'' Swingle said. ``They are living and calving here.''

Numbers from today's count must be analyzed to avoid counting the same dolphins more than once and won't be available until September. ILLUSTRATION: DOLPHIN DATA

Dolphins commonly seen off Virginia Beach are bottlenose

dolphins, one of 18 species of dolphins in North America.

Bottlenose dolphins, which can grow as long as 12 feet, have dark

gray backs that shade to gray on the sides and white or pink on the

belly. They feed primarily on fish.

Dolphins are mammals. They surface to breath through blowholes on

top of their heads. The young are born alive and are nourished by

their mothers' milk.

Dolphins are not porpoises. Porpoises are in another family

altogether. The harbor porpoise, occasionally seen in this area in

winter, is smaller than a dolphin and has a rounded head with no

snout.