What was the porpoise?
A dozen fun-loving and acrobatic dolphins turned the East River into their playground — leaving bewildered experts scratching their heads on what propelled the rare visit.
The pod of short-beaked common dolphins danced around Randall’s Island on Monday, dazzling New Yorkers who were out and about enjoying the first warm days of the year.
Videos showed the dolphins soaring out of the waves with the city skyline serving as a backdrop, while frenzied onlookers cheered at the unbelievable sight.
While it’s not the first visit by the species to the waterway, the sighting marks the largest pod of the short-beaked common dolphins to meander into the East River in recent history.
“Whether it’s a migration or if it’s just that this is a good spot to eat — we don’t know. It’s a little bit difficult with dolphins,” Chris St. Lawrence of Gotham Whale told The Post.
“It’s always cool to see big groups of dolphins in the city area. It shows that at least there’s enough food somewhere in the area to support that many animals.”
Common dolphins are present in the metro region all year round, but generally live off-shore, unlike the bottlenose dolphins which are more commonly seen along beaches and inside of estuaries, according to Gotham Whale.
The species’ presence in the East River is so new that experts are not entirely sure what is leading them into the estuary, though Gotham Whale theorizes that the pod may have been following its lunch.
The east side of Randall’s Island is “pretty productive” for fish like striped bass, menhaden and anchovies, St. Lawrence explained, adding that he saw a pack of seagulls hunting in the same area later Monday after the dolphins had dined and dashed.
But the pod could have also been using the East River as its own personal playground, he noted.
“That area around Hellgate has a really strong current and we know that dolphins often hang out in in strong waves so that that could be another thing. The video showed the dolphins jumping out of the water,” said St. Lawrence.
The sighting comes almost exactly a year after a pair of short-beaked dolphins captivated the Big Apple with their own graceful dancing.
The tale ended in tragedy, however, when one washed up bloodied and battered on the shores of Astoria from a boat strike.
The brutal death — and others like it — inspired the unanimous passage of the Whale Awareness Act in the state Senate and Assembly this month.
If signed into law by Gov. Hochul, it would protect marine life by increasing the amount of state-mandated educational materials to prevent boat strikes.
Gotham Whale is asking that members of the public report any sightings of the marine mammals like the dolphin pod so it can better understand the populations — and discover what led the pod of dolphins to meander into the East River this week.
“That’s kind of why it’s important for all of these sightings across different years and even weeks and days to be reported: so that when we look back, we can we can look at patterns like that,” said St. Lawrence.