A humpback whale was spotted feeding off the Brunswick County coast Thursday. It circled near a thick patch of baitfish offshore of Lockwood Folly Inlet for close to an hour before resuming its westward journey along Holden Beach toward South Carolina, giving local boaters and researchers a rare close-up look at one of the Atlantic's biggest travelers.
Cape Fear Dolphin Research, a nonprofit dedicated to studying, protecting, and educating the public about bottlenose dolphins and marine ecosystems throughout the Cape Fear, says it was alerted to the sighting by Seabattical Fishing Charters near Brunswick County before locating and observing the whale offshore of Lockwood Folly Inlet, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. Ollie Raja Charters also shared a live video of the whale off Oak Island, and a local captain reported it moving west along Oak Island near Big Hill, per the same report.
As detailed by WWAY News, the group spotted the whale offshore on Thursday, October 22, off Lockwood Folly Inlet and Holden Beach. The whale had a distinctive marking researchers could use for identification: a whale barnacle attached to its dorsal fin. Humpback whales are known to host specialized barnacles, namely the species Coronula diadema, the station reports.
A Snack Stop Before the Long Swim South
Cape Fear Dolphin Research told the News & Observer that the whale appeared to feed for much of an hour near abundant baitfish before continuing west along Holden Beach toward South Carolina. The group noted that humpbacks may feed on concentrated schools of fish during migration, and that Cape Fear waters had plentiful baitfish this fall, according to the News & Observer's reporting.
The sighting fits a well-documented pattern. North Atlantic humpback whales migrate south in the fall, moving from their northern feeding grounds toward winter breeding and calving areas in the West Indies, with the Dominican Republic cited as one example, per the News & Observer. Humpbacks inhabit all of the world's major oceans and shuttle between cold feeding zones and warm tropical waters where they breed, and while they are mostly solitary, they often form small groups to feed, mate or travel together, the newspaper notes.
North Atlantic humpbacks migrate from northern feeding grounds to Caribbean wintering areas.
Not the First Humpback to Linger in Cape Fear Waters
This isn't the first time a humpback has made a pit stop in the region. A humpback whale followed menhaden fish into the Cape Fear River in 2021, and in 2025 another humpback was spotted in the river during a dolphin survey with students and stayed for about a week, according to the News & Observer.
In November 2024, WBTW News reported a humpback along the Garden City and Myrtle Beach coasts, with at least two official sightings in a single week, and Myrtle Beach State Park posted an 8-second video showing the whale breaching about 20 feet offshore in Garden City. Further south, a 30-foot-long humpback was spotted off DeBordieu, South Carolina, during the winter migration period, as reported by The Post and Courier.
Why Researchers Track Every Barnacle and Scar
Documenting sightings like this one matters beyond a good photo opportunity. Cape Fear Dolphin Research says tracking humpback whales provides information about their physical characteristics and supports long-term monitoring, the News & Observer reports. Distinctive dorsal fin shapes, scars, and attached organisms, like the barnacle spotted on Thursday's whale, help provide supplementary information when comparing photographs of individual whales, according to WWAY News.
Photo-identification for humpbacks primarily relies on the pigmentation patterns on the underside of their tail flukes, with dorsal fin shapes, scars and attached organisms serving as supporting details, per the News & Observer.
Estimates of just how big these animals get vary slightly by source. The News & Observer reports humpbacks can grow 46 to 56 feet long and weigh up to 49 short tons, while WBTW News cites figures of up to 60 feet and 40 tons. Either way, the whale that paused off Holden Beach this week was, for a little while, the biggest thing swimming in Brunswick County waters — before it continued on its long journey south.
