When Shelby Heiskell and her boyfriend set out for Johnnie Mercer’s Pier on Saturday, Nov. 26 she hadn’t planned on catching a whale, just some fish.
But guided by her patience and quick reflexes, a whale was indeed what Heiskell caught, on video with her smartphone, as it surfaced near the pier. The sighting created a stir of curiosity among the anglers, with some who stated they had never seen a whale from the pier over decades of fishing there, Heiskell said.
“It was very exciting to watch. It was such an amazing thing to see,’” Heiskell said. “It was calm and people were frozen. Everyone was talking about what they had just seen.”
Today while fishing on the pier, I checked off the number one thing on my bucket list : see whales in the wild
Posted by Shelby Elizabeth Heiskell on Saturday, November 26, 2016
While whale sightings are not unheard of in Wrightsville Beach, Heiskell said she talked with anglers who have been fishing from the pier for decades and have never heard of seeing a whale in the water. Neither has Shannon Slocum, the town’s park ranger, who has worked alongside the ocean for 15 years here, but not once seen a whale. However, Slocum said that a former owner of the Oceanic Restaurant claimed to once see a whale get so close to the Crystal Pier that it scratched its back on the wooden pilings.
“I’ve seen a lot of unique animals here, but never a whale,” Slocum said.
The whale Heiskell captured on video wasn’t the first they’d seen from the pier that morning. But it was the first that came close enough to get a clear video. Heiskell said the first whale sighting was at about 8 a.m., and as many as four whales got within about 70 yards of the pier.
“They would create a big mist. They were moving very slowly, almost like in a circle, and they would disappear for a while,” Heiskell said.
A couple hours after the first sighting, Heiskell said they saw another group of whales, but again they were too far off the pier to get a decent sighting. Then, close to noon, Heiskell saw one whale heading right for Johnnie Mercer’s Pier, coming as close as 20 yards.
Catching the giant ocean mammal on video required patience, and Heiskell watched the water for several minutes waiting to see the creature resurface for air.
“I took six videos just waiting for it to come up,” she said.
What’s not known is what breed of whale Heiskell saw last week. The fishermen on the pier speculated it was either a right whale or pilot whale.
William McLellan, a marine mammalogy research associate at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, said the whales most common to the area are the North American right whale, which is critically endangered, and the humpback whale, which is fairly common and regularly swims very close to the beach.
“It is not uncommon to see humpback whales swimming off any of the piers,” McLellan stated in an email. “The animals have just shown up now that the waters have cooled off and will stay here through the spring until the waters warm up again.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned boaters in early December to avoid migrating right whales and listed the waters off of Wilmington as a primary area where the whales could be spotted.
“These animals are highly endangered as there are less than 500 of this species alive,” McLellan said. “These whales are heading south to give birth to this winter’s calves in the waters from Cape Fear south to the central east coast of Florida.”
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