Month: November 2018

michelle.mech@gmail.com

Plastic Bag Removed from Sea Turtle’s Esophagus

In yet another troubling reminder of the hazards that plastic products can pose to marine life, an aquarium in South Africa has shared a video online that shows a plastic bag and other trash being removed from a sea turtle’s esophagus.

According to Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, the sea turtle was found washed up on a beach in the town of Struisbaai earlier this month. Visibly sick and “very weak,” the turtle was rushed to the aquarium where veterinarians got to work figuring out what was wrong with the animal.

The aquarium said in a Friday blog post that a lung infection or pneumonia had initially been suspected as the possible culprit, but antibiotics and other medication didn’t seem to help ― and the animal only got weaker as the days went by. Further tests finally revealed that there was some sort of blockage in the sea turtle’s esophagus.

A video shows a veterinarian using a special endoscope to remove the obstruction. A large piece of black plastic is seen being removed from the turtle’s throat, which the aquarium said had been part of a plastic bag.

As of Friday, the turtle remained in critical condition following the procedure.

As Two Oceans noted, plastic bags resemble the rescued turtle’s natural food — sea grasses and other plants.

TWO OCEANS AQUARIUM
The plastic bag that the sea turtle swallowed and that got stuck in the sea turtle’s esophagus (right)
resembles the sea plants that are central to its diet (left).

The sea turtle was found on the South African beach at around the same time that a dead sperm whale washed up in a national park in Indonesia, its stomach chock-full of plastic waste. About 13 pounds of plastic trash was found in the whale’s stomach, including 115 drinking cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, two flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other assorted pieces of plastic.

 

This story is part of a series on plastic waste, funded by SC Johnson. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the company.

Dominique Mosbergen, HuffPost,

November 18, 2018

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/sea-turtle-plastic-bag-throat-video_n_5c04ec58e4b04fb211698b69

 

michelle.mech@gmail.com

Dead whale found with stomach full of plastic: 115 cups, 2 flip-flops and much, much more

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A dead whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had a large lump of plastic waste in its stomach, including drinking cups and flip-flops, a park official said Tuesday, causing concern among environmentalists and government officials in one of the world’s largest plastic polluting countries.Rescuers from Wakatobi National Park found the rotting carcass of the 9.5-meter sperm whale late Monday near the park in Southeast Sulawesi province after receiving a report from environmentalists that villagers had surrounded the dead whale and were beginning to butcher the rotting carcass, park chief Heri Santoso said.

Santoso said researchers from wildlife conservation group WWF and the park’s conservation academy found about 5.9 kilograms of plastic waste in the animal’s stomach containing 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, 2 flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other assorted pieces of plastic.

The dead whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had a large lump of plastic waste in its stomach, causing concern among environmentalists and government officials in one of the world’s largest plastic polluting countries. Muhammad Irpan Sejati Tassakka via AP / AP
“Although we have not been able to deduce the cause of death, the facts that we see are truly awful,” said Dwi Suprapti, a marine species conservation co-ordinator at WWF Indonesia.She said it was not possible to determine if the plastic had caused the whale’s death because of the animal’s advanced state of decay.

Researchers remove plastic waste from the stomach of a beached whale at Wakatobi National Park in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. Muhammad Irpan Sejati Tassakka via AP / AP

 

Indonesia, an archipelago of 260 million people, is the world’s second-largest plastic polluter after China, according to a study published in the journal Science in January. It produces 3.2 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste a year, of which 1.29 million tons ends up in the ocean, the study said.

Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s co-ordinating minister of maritime affairs, said the whale’s discovery should raise public awareness about the need to reduce plastic use, and had spurred the government to take tougher measures to protect the ocean.

Indonesia in one of the world’s largest plastic polluting countries. Muhammad Irpan Sejati Tassakka via AP / AP

“I’m so sad to hear this,” said Pandjaitan, who recently has campaigned for less use of plastic. “It is possible that many other marine animals are also contaminated with plastic waste and this is very dangerous for our lives.”

He said the government is making efforts to reduce the use of plastic, including urging shops not to provide plastic bags for customers and teaching about the problem in schools nationwide to meet a government target of reducing plastic use by 70 percent by 2025.

“This big ambition can be achieved if people learn to understand that plastic waste is a common enemy,” he told The Associated Press.

 

The Associated Press

November 20, 2018

Dead whale found with stomach full of plastic: 115 cups, 2 flip-flops and much, much more