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Dolphins Launch Through Air in Viral Video

Pod of dolphins captured leaping through air; video goes viral.

Published August 21, 2024 at 3:57pm by Max Hauptman

Dolphins Perform Aerial Stunts off San Diego Coast

A pod of Bottlenose Dolphins captivated viewers with their acrobatic leaps off the coast of San Diego last week. The footage, captured by Erica Sackrison of Gone Whale Watching, has since garnered millions of views on social media.

Sackrison spotted the dolphins on Aug. 12, noting to local news station KFMB, "You could just see them jumping like, 20 feet in the air... Almost feels like they were doing Olympic-style jumps."

Witness Dolphins in 'Olympic-style' Jumps

The video, showing dolphins skimming the water and launching high into the air, has amassed over 8 million views.

Gone Whale Watching founder Dominic Biagini suggested to KFMB that abundant food sources might have attracted the dolphins. "Anchovies are a popular food source... But we've also been seeing bottlenose dolphins in bigger numbers, and the bottlenose dolphins are the ones that you see in those spectacular videos, leaping into the air... most likely, we have an influx of squid right now," Biagini told KFMB.

Max Hauptman is a Trending Reporter for USA TODAY. He can be reached at MHauptman@gannett.com