It's become an all too disturbing trend: huge whales that ingest absurd amounts of plastic pollution in the ocean and end up dying of starvation and dehydration. Over the weekend, a young male Cuvier's Beaked Whale was found dead near shore in the Philippines.
A local marine biologist was called in to perform a necropsy on the animal, which was when a "disgusting" amount of plastic was discovered in its digestive track.
"It was so big, the plastic was beginning calcification," Darrell Blatchley told CNN Philippines.
Blatchley posted on Facebook that they pulled 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of plastic bags from the whale, " including 16 rice sacks. 4 banana plantation-style bags and multiple shopping bags... This whale had the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale."
All that plastic stuck in its gut likely prevented the whale from getting the amount of nutrition and hydration (which whales get from their food rather than sea water) needed to survive.
"Action must be taken by the government against those who continue to treat the waterways and ocean as dumpsters," Blatchley wrote.
The problem of plastic pollution making its way into waterways and ultimately to the oceans is particularly intense in southeast Asian seas, where dead whales that ingested large amounts of plastic were found dead in Thailand and Indonesia just last year. But the epidemic of discarded persistent plastics is a global problem that also recently made its way to the shores of Spain.
“This whale’s tragic death by plastic is an important wake-up call to the fact that we can and must do more to stop ocean plastic pollution," says Lindsay Mosher, Blue Habits Project Manager for the Oceanic Society.
A number of efforts are underway to cut back on the use of plastic, particularly single-use containers like bags, bottles, straws and eating utensils. A 2015 study found that almost 13 million metric tons of plastic enters the ocean in a single year, and estimated that amount could increase ten-fold by 2025.
"Collectively, our daily habits have enormous power to help solve this problem. Millions of people worldwide have already taken steps to curb their plastic use and have asked businesses and governments to do the same," Mosher says.
The Natural Resources Defense Council offers a simple list of ten ways to help reduce plastic pollution that is a good place to start.
