James West was hoping to find red snapper when he pulled his boat into Mobile Bay last Thursday. Instead he found one of the world’s largest mammals.

At first, West thought he spotted some dolphins. “We saw a bunch of birds and some humps off in the distance,” he said. Then he thought it might be manatees. As he steered closer, he decided, “someone was either playing a trick on me or the Navy had lost a submarine.” When it sprayed water into the sky, West realized it was a whale.

West knew a whale in Mobile Bay was not a normal occurrence. He immediately began making calls talking to people as far away as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He eventually got in touch with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration (NOAA) and the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

Everyone he spoke with seemed a little skeptical at first. “I guess they didn’t quite believe it until I sent them pictures and videos, and then they became extremely excited,” he said. The Dauphin Island Sea Lab quickly responded to the scene to monitor the whale and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) secured the area around the whale to protect both it and boaters.

West learned from responders he had found a sperm whale, a deep ocean feeder extremely rare for shallow gulf waters. The species is the largest toothed whale and can grow to sizes dwarfed only by finback and blue whales. While they can grow to 60 feet in length, the one found by West was approximately 35 feet long. (more…)