White-beaked dolphins favor cold, northern water, and Massachusetts sits near the southern edge of a range that stretches up into the Gulf of Maine and Canadian waters, which is likely why the state’s record is so thin at just 27 entries, all from GBIF rather than photographs.
Records cluster in March and May, with almost nothing the rest of the year, a pattern that fits cold-water animals passing through Massachusetts waters only when temperatures are at their lowest before moving farther north for summer. NatureServe ranks the species S1, critically imperiled, in Massachusetts, the most precarious status of any dolphin tracked in the state.
Full species profile
