One of world's most endangered whales spotted in Gulf of Mexico

NAPLES, Fla. — Fishing boat Capt. Robert Holzinger was taking customers into the Gulf of Mexico when he saw it.

A whale spout about 3 miles off Gordon Pass turned out to be a North Atlantic right whale, one of the world's most endangered and a rare sight in the Gulf.

“It was the last thing we were expecting to see,” Holzinger, 23, said Tuesday.

Holzinger, who's been fishing in Naples waters since he was a child, had never seen a whale until the Monday morning fishing trip. At first, he said, he thought it was a dolphin.

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He pulled his phone out in time to capture a video of the whale surfacing a few feet from his boat.

“It was very exciting,” he said.

The sighting astonished scientists, who said it is the same juvenile right whale spotted near Panama City Beach earlier this month.

Gretchen Lovewell, stranding investigations program manager at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, called the sighting “shocking.”

“It’s an extremely rare occurrence,” she said. “I always get a little bit nervous because I worry about them running into trouble.”

The last time a right whale was seen in the Gulf of Mexico was in 2006. Only five right whales have been reported in the Gulf since 1963.

Right whales can typically be found between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia, but females travel to Florida’s northeast coast in the fall to give birth and nurse their calves.

Some 360 right whales are left in the wild, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Right whales can live for more than 100 years and use baleen plates to feed on zooplankton. Females give birth every three to five years and nurse their young for about a year. Adults are 45-50 feet long and can weigh up to 55 tons.

Right whales are dark and do not have a dorsal fin, making them difficult for boaters to see.

They are known to spend a significant amount of time at the water’s surface and appear to be oblivious to nearby dangers.

Roughly one-third of right whale deaths are caused by boating collisions or entanglement in fishing nets. Seventeen right whales died in 2017, Lovewell said, and many of the deaths were caused by snow crab fishing gear. Some 80% of right whales show signs of previous entanglement, she added.

“The human impact on these animals is huge,” she said.

Follow Annika Hammerschlag on Twitter:  @a_hammerschlag