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Jennifer Gentzel has seen whales in Alaskan waters, but never off the coast of Hilton Head Island.
Right whales spotted off Port Royal Sound
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That was until Friday, when she saw two North Atlantic right whales come up for air while fishing with her family about 13 miles from the mouth of Port Royal Sound.
"We all had the rods out, and all of a sudden we heard a 'Pshhhh,'" Gentzel said of the whales, which were within a football field's length of their boat. "It was awesome. We just pulled up anchor and followed them for about a half hour. They came up about every 10 minutes."
Gentzel was also fishing with her boyfriend and charter fishing Capt. Jim Clark of Stray Cat Charters.
Clark said he's seen right whales before but usually far off in the distance. They can be found off the coast of South Carolina from November through April as they swim south from Canada to warmer calving grounds off the Georgia and Florida coasts.
Only about 300 are believed to exist, according to the National Oceand Atmospheric Administration. Their population was hunted to near extinction because they were the "right" whales to hunt -- slow-moving, with buoyant bodies that float after they're killed. Now they're on the federally endangered species list.
Though the whales are no longer hunted, their leading cause of death is collisions with ships. They tend to travel across major shipping lanes about 4 to 25 miles off shore.
To further protect the species, NOAA recently enacted a new rule requiring vessels to slow to 10 knots or less, or about 12 mph, in 17 East Coast shipping ports from Boston to Port Canaveral, Fla., including those in Charleston and Savannah.
NOAA is tracking the whales' migration with the help of the New York-based Wildlife Trust. The scientists have conducted six aerial surveys off the coast of South Carolina since Nov. 15 and have spotted the whales twice.
The trust has been conducting surveys of the whales since 2004.
Dianna Schulte, the Trust's aerial survey team leader for South Carolina said this year's data is important since it might help NOAA learn if the new ship speed rule is protecting the whales from collision deaths.
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