Alabama NewsCenter: Fisherman Recounts Discovering Whale in Alabama’s Mobile Bay

Click HERE to see the full article on the Alabama NewsCenter website.

By Todd Perkins

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.

The rest of the article is located at AlabamaNewsCenter.com.

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