The alarming trend of beached whales filled with plastic explained

Whales, in particular baleen whales, are particularly susceptible to microplastics.

This week, the carcass of the young sperm whale, estimated to have been 7 years old, was found on a beach in Cefalù, Italy. Investigators aren’t certain whether the plastic killed the whale. But it’s part of a gruesome pattern that’s become impossible to ignore and is just the tip of the iceberg.

In April, a pregnant sperm whale washed up on a beach in Sardinia with nearly 50 pounds’ worth of plastic bags, containers, and tubing in her stomach. Biologists in Florida last month euthanized a baby rough-toothed dolphin with two plastic bags and a shredded balloon in its stomach.

“The dolphin was very young and emaciated,” said Michelle Kerr, a spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, in an email. “Due to a poor prognosis, the decision was made to humanely euthanize the animal on scene.”

In March, a 1,100-pound Cuvier’s beaked whale was recovered in the Philippines filled with 88 pounds of plastic bags, fishing line, and rice sacks. A beached sperm whale was found in Indonesia last year with more than 1,000 pieces of plastic inside.

As the quantity of plastic humans dump in the ocean has reached obscene proportions, we’re seeing more and more sea life — including birdsotterssea turtles, and fish — choking on it.

But the impact on whales is particularly alarming. After centuries of whaling and overfishing, the survival of many whale species is already precarious. Now, just as their numbers are starting to recover, whales are consuming our toxic waste. And their deaths aren’t just about biodiversity loss: Whales play a critical role in marine ecosystems, which provide 3 billion people with their primary sources of protein.

To find out more about why whales are so vulnerable to plastic waste, I talked to Lars Bejder, director of the Marine Mammal Research Program at the University of Hawaii Manoa. He said there are multiple mechanisms at work here and that dying isn’t the only plastic hazard for whales, and explained why the problem will only get worse.

There’s a gargantuan amount of plastic in the ocean

The root cause of these stranded, plastic-filled whales is that plastic is cheap and easy to produce but almost impossible for nature to destroy. Chunks of plastic linger for decades, breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. . . Over 8 million metric tons of plastic — a mass greater than that of the Great Pyramid of Giza — enters the ocean each year.

Meanwhile, we’re still trying to figure out how much plastic waste has already accumulated in the ocean. A study published this week in the journal Scientific Reports estimated that 414 million bits of garbage weighing 238 tons have been deposited on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands 1,300 miles off the coast of Australia. It’s a sign that even the most remote regions of the world are now contaminated with the detritus of civilization.

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales stands beside a huge Whale made from plastic bottles as part of the Sky Ocean rescue Campaign, outside the Queen Elizabeth II building at Westminster on April 17, 2018 in London, England.
Charles, Prince of Wales, stands beside a huge whale made from plastic bottles as part of the Sky Ocean rescue campaign, outside the Queen Elizabeth II building at Westminster on April 17, 2018, in London.  John Stillwell/WPA Pool/Getty Images

“Sadly, the situation on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is not unique, with significant quantities of debris documented on islands and coastal areas from the Arctic to the Antarctic,” researchers wrote. “[G]lobal debris surveys, the majority of which are focused solely on surface debris, have drastically underestimated the scale of debris accumulation.”

And the amount of plastic waste in the ocean is surging. . . . So for the largest, hungriest animals in the ocean, plastic is becoming an unwelcome part of their diets.

Different whales face different risks from plastic

Whales are among the more intelligent creatures in the ocean, so why aren’t they smart enough to avoid eating plastic? Well, one reason is that often plastic is in their (and our) food.

Small crustaceans like krill and tiny fish like anchovies often end up inadvertently consuming microplastics. Whales, the largest animals ever known to have existed, have a voracious appetite for these critters. A blue whale eats between 2 and 4 tons of krill per day.

Whales like the blue whale have baleen plates in their mouths that act as filters, trapping their small prey as well as small bits of plastic. This means they are less likely to ingest larger plastic waste items like bottles and containers, but the small plastic bits they consume quickly pile up.

“These baleen whales filter hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of water per day,” Bejder said. “You can imagine all these microplastics they encounter through this filtration process that then become bioaccumulated.”

Microplastics are unlikely to obstruct the digestive tract of a baleen whale, but as they build up inside an animal’s tissues, they can leach toxic chemicals like endocrine disruptors that make the creature sick. This problem can affect all ocean filter feeders, including manta rays and whale sharks.

Rescuers found a baby dolphin in distress in Fort Myers, Florida. After the animal was euthanized, officials found two plastic bags and a piece of a balloon in its stomach.
Rescuers found a baby dolphin in distress in Fort Myers, Florida, last month. After the animal was euthanized, officials found two plastic bags and a piece of a balloon in its stomach.   Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

That means there could be large whales dying of plastic poisoning without obvious culprits like flip-flops and food containers in their stomachs, according to Bejder.

A study published this week in Royal Society Open Science also reported that plastic pollution is more dangerous to baleen whales than oil spills. “Particle capture studies suggest potentially greater danger to [baleen whales] from plastic pollution than oil,” the authors wrote.

Toothed whales like sperm whales and dolphins normally catch bigger prey, like squid. But since they can swallow larger animals, they are vulnerable to larger chunks of plastic, like bags and nets.

“They might be seeking those out because they’re thinking they might be prey,” Bejder said. A plastic container in murky waters could resemble a fish to a toothed whale, or a sperm whale may inadvertently swallow plastic garbage as it hunts for a meal.

Once ingested, the plastic piles up in the whale’s stomach. It can then obstruct bowels, preventing whales from digesting food and leading them to starve to death. It can also give a whale a false sense of being full, leading the whale to eat less and get weaker. That leaves it vulnerable to predators and disease.

Just the tip of the iceberg – we’re only seeing a tiny fraction of the whales being harmed by plastic

Part of the reason we pay so much attention to whales killed by plastic is because the whales themselves are very big and the plastic culprits are startlingly obvious. Large animals decay slowly, giving people plenty of time to figure out the cause of death, whereas smaller fish and crustaceans dying from plastic decompose quickly and are rarely investigated. Even for casual observers, a dead whale blocking a beach vacation photo is pretty hard to ignore.

Still, we’re missing a big part of the picture.

“The ones that land on the beach that are killed through ingestion, they’re just the tip of the iceberg. They’re just the ones that we see,” Bejder said. “I’m sure that many, many marine mammals have some levels of plastic bags and plastic items in their stomachs.”

Many more whales could be dying from plastic poisoning without our knowledge. Around the Gulf of Mexico for example, 2 to 6 percent of whale carcasses end up on a shoreline. That means the vast majority sink to the ocean floor. This is likely the case for most of the world’s waters.

And the fact that whales are suffering shows that our marine ecosystems in general are in peril. “Whales, baleen whales, these larger dolphins species are pretty much at the top of the food chain,” Bejder said. “They are sentinels of ocean health for sure.”

But with more plastic waste pouring into the ocean, the prognosis for the most mega of megafauna is grim.

By Umair Irfan, Voz

May 25, 2019

https://www.vox.com/2019/5/24/18635543/plastic-bags-whale-stomach-beached?fbclid=IwAR0Gyh_KWDHLjK1TSfSOS-ViKlk6PVKwkex0KNUJFUXkqlxf3T8l2yv8ZMs

Plastic Pollution Harms Ocean Bacteria That Produce 10 Percent of Earth’s Oxygen

“We found that exposure to chemicals leaching from plastic pollution interfered with the growth, photosynthesis and oxygen production of Prochlorococcus, the ocean’s most abundant photosynthetic bacteria,” lead study author and Macquarie University researcher Dr. Sasha Tetu said in a Macquarie University press release.

The tests were done in a laboratory setting, which means the researchers do not yet know if plastics are currently harming the bacteria in the environment.

“Now we’d like to explore if plastic pollution is having the same impact on these microbes in the ocean,” Tetu said.

Children swims in the sea full of garbage in North Jakarta, Indonesia. Getty (left)

  

 

 

 

 

 

Children collect plastic water bottles among the garbage washed ashore at the Manila Bay. AFP/Getty (right) 

 

 

 

 

 

A man climbs down to a garbage filled river in Manila. AFP/Getty (left)

 

The study is the first of its kind to look at the potential impacts of plastic on this vital ocean bacteria, which, in addition to producing oxygen, are an essential part of the marine food web. Researchers assessed two strains of Prochlorococcus common at different depths of the ocean. They exposed the strains to chemicals leached from plastic bags and PCV matting. The chemicals had a noted impact on the bacteria, impairing their growth and the amount of oxygen they produced, as well as altering their gene expression.

“This study revealed a new and unanticipated danger of plastic pollution,” paper co-author and Macquarie University Research Fellow Lisa Moore told The Independent.

“We found that exposure to chemicals leaching from plastic pollution interfered with the growth, photosynthesis and oxygen production of the ocean’s most abundant photosynthetic bacteria,” says lead author Dr Sasha Tetu.”

The researchers pointed to the importance of better understanding how plastic pollution impacts smaller organisms at the base of the food web.

“Our data shows that plastic pollution may have widespread ecosystem impacts beyond the known effects on macro-organisms, such as seabirds and turtles,” Tetu said in the university press release. “If we truly want to understand the full impact of plastic pollution in the marine environment and find ways to mitigate it, we need to consider its impact on key microbial groups, including photosynthetic microbes.”

Moore told The Independent how plastic might impact these microbes and the environment that depends on them going forward:

“If management of plastic waste is left unattended, prochlorococcus populations could decrease in some locations, which could affect the other organisms that depend on prochlorococcus for food,” Dr. Moore said.

“It is possible that some prochlorococcus are already affected when in close proximity to plastics.

“However, it would be decades before enough plastics build up in the oceans to affect prochlorococcus populations on a global scale.”

If the current rate of plastic pollution continues unchecked, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.

FEATURED IMAGE: The game where one has to guess how many jelly beans or marbles can fill a jar should never be played with the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus. By some estimates, in a single liter of water as many as 100 million cells of this tiny bacterium can be found. These important organisms serve as the base of the ocean food chain and are thought to be responsible for providing up to 20% of the oxygen produced by the planet each year.  AFP/Getty

By Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch

These tiny fish reveal our oceans’ biggest problem: plastic waste

THERE’S THE PLASTIC waste we can see—bottles, bags, discarded fishing nets, and all manner of other objects littering shorelines and bobbing in oceans. And then there’s the plastic waste we can’t see: microplastics, whittled by sun, wind, and waves into bits so small that some are visible only under a microscope. Scientists are just beginning to understand the impact these particles are having on fish, the food chain, and ultimately, us.

For this month’s story about microplastics—part of National Geographic’s Planet or Plastic? initiative to reduce plastic waste—photographer David Liittschwager documented the ubiquity of plastics in ocean water samples. Writer Laura Parker’s reporting took her to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lab in Honolulu, where oceanographer Jamison Gove and fish biologist Jonathan Whitney study microplastics in the slicks where larval fish spend their first days of life.

Most of us won’t see microplastics’ harm at the level that scientists do. But with about nine million tons of visible plastic debris washing into oceans each year, we see clearly how it’s hurting turtles, seabirds, whales, and many other species. Isn’t that reason enough to join the global effort to reduce plastic waste?
. . .

RELATED: ANIMALS IN A WORLD OF PLASTIC

 

 

 

Larval fish are eating plastic

Newborn / larval fish are mistaking tiny bits of trash for food. If they die, there’ll be fewer big fish—and that could rattle the food chain.

FISH NURSERIES OFF HAWAII ARE NOW A MICROPLASTIC MESS.  The naturally oily surface slicks in which many ocean fish come of age are rich in plankton and other fish food—and now also in plastics, according to researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Honolulu. They’ve been towing fine mesh nets through slicks off the Big Island and analyzing each haul. Here, a scribbled filefish, about 50 days old and two inches long, navigates a soup of plastic.

Not long ago I went snorkeling in the Pacific Ocean, a half mile off the southwest coast of Oahu. The flanks of the Hawaiian island are steep there, and the bottom quickly disappeared beneath us as we motored out to the site. Looking back, I could see the green slopes of the Waianae Range rising to 4,000 feet behind the beach. Normally the mountains shield the water here from the trade winds. But on that day a breeze created a light chop that nearly obscured what I had come to see: a thin, oily slick of surface water, rich in organic particles, in which newborn fish were feeding and struggling to survive their first precarious weeks.

My guides that day, oceanographer Jamison Gove and fish biologist Jonathan Whitney of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Honolulu, are nearly three years into a research project that aims to make sense of this chaotic scene. The larval stage is the “black box” of fisheries science: Fertilized eggs go in, and young fish come out—but what happens inside remains sketchy. The larval fish are so small and fragile they’re exceedingly difficult to study. The overwhelming majority will never become adults. Yet fish populations around the world, and the animals that eat them, depend on just how many larval fish make it, and in what condition.

The blue glove hasn’t been in the water long enough to suffer the fate of most ocean plastic, which is to be shredded into small bits, or microplastics, by waves and sunlight. The larval fish below the thumb is a driftfish; the striped one at the base of the index finger is a mahi-mahi.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS MADE AT A TEMPORARY FIELD LAB, NOAA PACIFIC ISLANDS FISHERIES SCIENCE CENTER, KAILUA KONA, HAWAII, EXCEPT WHERE NOTED.

What Gove and Whitney have found lately—and what David Liittschwager’s photographs of their water samples document—is that fish and wholesome fish food are not the only things collecting in the slicks off Hawaii. Microplastics, tiny shreds of human trash, are there as well, and in such abundance that larval fish are eating them in their first days of life.

For newborn fish, to eat is to live another day; if their first meal is plastic, they’re not consuming the calories they need to sustain them until the second. “They’ve beaten a lot of odds to get this far,” Gove says. “They hatched, they found the slick, they’re feeding and growing. This is one-tenth of one percent that made it this far; they’re the lucky ones. And now plastics are coming in.”

“The most critical moment is that first feeding,” Whitney says. “If they get a piece of plastic, that could be it. A single thread in the stomach of a larval fish is potentially a killer.”

ON THE RIGHT, FISH FOOD. ON THE RIGHT, PLASTIC.A dollop of surface water from the English Channel contains a shrimplike krill, about a third of an inch long; a smaller decapod crustacean; and an orange sea star just emerging from its filmy floating larval stage. The white chip and the fraying red fiber on the right are polyethylene—but to a young fish they too may look like food. Three percent of the larval fish caught for a 2017 study by researchers at Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the University of Plymouth had eaten microplastic fibers.
PHOTOGRAPHED AT MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, PLYMOUTH, U.K.; PLASTIC IDENTIFICATION PROVIDED BY UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH

Plastic waste, mostly from rivers or careless dumping on land, washes into the oceans at an average rate of about nine million tons a year, according to a 2015 study by Jenna Jambeck of the University of Georgia. The visible trash, along with heartbreaking images of its impact on everything from turtles to birds to whales, has generated a public outcry. But sunlight, wind, and waves eventually break down ocean plastic to bits that are barely visible. One of the biggest unknowns—and concerns—is the effect that these microplastics, smaller than a fifth of an inch, might be having on fish.

Fish provide critical protein to nearly three billion people and countless seabirds and other marine animals. But fish stocks worldwide have fallen by half since 1970, surveys show. Populations of the largest predatory fish, such as tuna, have fallen even more. The decline is largely because of overfishing, but pollution and waters warmed and acidified by climate change are having a growing impact.

As long ago as the early 1970s, scientists were finding plastic pellets—the material used to manufacture plastic goods—in the stomachs of fish caught off New England and Great Britain. More recent studies have documented the presence of even smaller microplastic particles in a growing array of adult fish. Larval fish have been studied much less but are likely to be more vulnerable to microplastics, as they are to everything else. “Any stressor will likely have more of an impact on early life stages than later life stages,” says Susanne Brander, a toxicologist at Oregon State University who is studying how plastics might affect the growth of fish.

A grid painted on a petri dish helps a NOAA technician sort through a sample and identify tiny organisms, such as the larval sergeant major damselfish on the left, just outside the middle row. The squares are one centimeter (.39 inch) across.

Most ocean fish are terrible parents. A few species guard their eggs on the seafloor; others protect them inside their mouths. But most fish release thousands or even millions of eggs and sperm into the wide ocean and never see their offspring. When eggs hatch a day or two later, the newborn fish are on their own.

Newborn fish look misshapen, heads oversize, tails barely formed. They have to eat like crazy to grow into their body. Whereas human babies develop in the shelter of the uterus, fish mainly develop after they emerge into an unforgiving world.

Predators or starvation will get most of them. “That’s why fish spawn so many eggs,” says Su Sponaugle, an Oregon State University marine ecologist who specializes in the early life stages of fish. “They have to hedge their bets.”

The larval phase is treacherous every step of the way—starting with the need for the larvae to find food, which they do in a surface slick. Surface slicks form mostly in coastal regions around the world, wherever currents, tides, or subsurface waves cause water to converge and concentrate the organic gunk that floats in it. Slicks can be seen by satellite as long, squiggly ribbons that run parallel to coasts.

Some larval fish swim to slicks, some drift, as do eggs not yet hatched. Predators converge on slicks too. If a baby fish manages to avoid being eaten and to find enough food, it will be about two inches long when it heads back to its permanent habitat—a reef, say. The right current will transport it there, the wrong one out to sea.

“If you miss an island, good luck with that. If there’s no reef, you cannot complete your life cycle,” Sponaugle says. Life for newborn fish was a crapshoot even before they met our plastic trash.


Off Hawaii, a single eight-minute tow of the NOAA team’s net yields a plethora of living organisms and plastic.

Pushed into a surface slick by converging currents, they’re separated in the lab by a technician with tweezers. A computer program counts the plastic pieces and measures each one; the technician uses a microscope to identify the creatures.

Stomach Of Dead Whale in the Philippines Contained ‘Nothing But Nonstop Plastic’

Darrell Blatchley received a call from the Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources early Friday morning reporting that it had a young Cuvier’s beaked whale that was weak and vomiting blood. Within a few hours it was dead.

Blatchley, a marine biologist and environmentalist based in the Philippines city of Davao, gathered his team to drive two hours to where the whale had washed up. When the necropsy was performed, Blatchley told NPR, he was not prepared for the amount of plastic they found in the whale’s stomach.

“It was full of plastic — nothing but nonstop plastic,” he said. “It was compact to the point that its stomach was literally as hard as a baseball. That means that this animal has been suffering not for days or weeks but for months or even a year or more,” Blatchley added.

He noted that among the 88 pounds of plastic were 16 rice sacks — similar to potato sacks — and plastic bags from local Philippine grocery chains, Gaisano Capital and Gaisano grocery outlet.

Blatchley is the founder and owner of the D’ Bone Collector Museum, a natural history museum in Davao. In the coming days, the museum will post a list of all the items found in the whale’s system, the museum said in a post on its Facebook page. Blatchley and his team work with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and other organizations to assist in rescue and recovery of marine animals.

“Within the last 10 years, we have recovered 61 whales and dolphins just within the Davao Gulf,” he said. “Of them, 57 have died due to man — whether they ingested plastic or fishing nets or other waste, or gotten caught in pollution — and four were pregnant.” In 2019 alone, Blatchley said, he and his team have found three whales or dolphins with plastic waste in their systems.

The Philippines has been deemed one of the “world’s leading plastic polluters.” According to the U.N. Environment Programme, some 9 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year. According to a 2017 study from the environmental group Ocean Conservancy, more than half of that waste comes from just five countries in East and Southeast Asia — China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The study found that more than half a million metric tons of plastic waste from the Philippines makes it into the ocean each year.

Blatchley said he hoped that the latest incident with the Cuvier’s beaked whale would launch the issue of plastic pollution in the Philippines, and across the globe, to the forefront. “If we keep going this way, it will be more uncommon to see an animal die of natural causes than it is to see an animal die of plastic,” he said.

Featured image: Darrell Blatchley, environmentalist and director of D’ Bone Collector Museum, shows plastic waste found in the stomach of a Cuvier’s beaked whale near the Philippine city of Davao. AFP/Getty Images

By Dalia Mortada, National Public Radio,

March 18, 2019

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/18/704471596/stomach-of-dead-whale-contained-nothing-but-plastic?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2ekb39YSb0uKuCB9Vw-gRngjSmpvYjIfCQcwE1GAjQE9cDiy50ePSVfPs

 

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

Party Balloons Are Killing Seabirds

The deadliest ocean garbage for seabirds is balloons, not plastic straws.

In a recent survey of over 1,700 dead seabirds, more than a quarter of the deaths were linked to eating plastic. Four in 10 of those deaths were caused by soft debris such as balloons (which are often made of plastic), even though it made up only 5 percent of the inedible trash in the birds’ stomachs.

Seabirds frequently snap up floating litter because it looks like food; once swallowed, it can obstruct birds’ guts and cause them to starve to death. If a seabird swallows a balloon, it’s 32 times more likely to die than if it had gulped down a piece of hard plastic, researchers reported in a new study.

“Among the birds we studied, the leading cause of death was blockage of the gastrointestinal tract, followed by infections or other complications caused by gastrointestinal obstructions,” lead study author Lauren Roman, a doctoral candidate with the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania in Australia, said in a statement.

With an estimated 280,000 tons (250,000 tonnes) of floating marine debris worldwide, about half of all seabird species are thought to ingest plastic on a daily basis, the study authors reported. Birds are especially likely to swallow dangerous balloons because they closely resemble squid, according to the study.

The findings were published online March 1 in the journal Scientific Reports.

 

Black Albatross entangled in party balloons and string

Featured image: Gannet entangled in balloon and string

 

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer,

https://www.livescience.com/64918-balloons-killing-seabirds.html?fbclid=IwAR0Q_jNegQ0GYdAkJcvNaBTkmCDcoQ1D7xTZKzheJ3vKt-v-aUU8LO52PmM

As reported in another study, 90% of seabirds now have plastic in their stomachs. Unless we drastically reduce the flow of plastic entering the ocean, by 2050, 99% of seabirds will have plastic in them.

Plastics reach remote pristine environments, impacting birds’ eggs of Arctic birds

Birds’ eggs in High Arctic contain chemical additives used in plastics.

Scientists have warned about the impact of plastic pollution in the most pristine corners of the world after discovering chemical additives in birds’ eggs in the High Arctic.

Eggs laid by northern fulmars on Prince Leopold Island in the Canadian Arctic tested positive for hormone-disrupting phthalates, a family of chemicals that are added to plastics to keep them flexible. It is the first time the additives have been found in Arctic birds’ eggs. The contaminants are thought to have leached from plastic debris that the birds ingested while hunting for fish, squid and shrimp in the Lancaster Sound at the entrance to the Northwest Passage. The birds spend most of their lives feeding at sea, returning to their nests only to breed.

Northern fulmars have an oily fluid in their stomachs, which they projectile-vomit at invaders that threaten their nests. Scientists believe the phthalates found their way into the fluid, and from there passed into the bloodstream and the eggs that females were producing. Jennifer Provencher at the Canadian Wildlife Service said it was worrying to find the additives in birds’ eggs in such a pristine environment. The northern fulmars in the Arctic tend to come across far less plastic than other birds.

Provencher’s tests revealed that mothers passed on a cocktail of contaminants to their unborn chicks. “It’s really tragic,” she said at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC. “That bird, from the very beginning of its development, will have those contaminants inside it.”

She analysed the yolk and albumin of five northern fulmar eggs collected on Prince Leopold Island and found that one tested positive for phthalates. The chemicals disrupt hormones, or the endocrine system, and have been linked to birth defects, fertility problems and a host of metabolic diseases. Many phthalates have been banned in children’s toys on safety grounds.

More work is needed to confirm whether the additives cause any harm. “We know that these chemicals are often endocrine disruptors, and we know that they can interrupt hormonal development and cause deformations. But whether they actually cause any harm in the eggs is something we don’t know,” Provencher said.

Scientists to look for contaminants in other bird populations

Further tests found traces of other plastic contaminants in northern fulmar and black-legged kittiwake eggs collected from the same nesting sites. Eggs from both birds tested positive for SDPAs and BZT-UVs, which are added to plastics to stop them degrading and losing their colour in sunlight, respectively.

Northern fulmars are large, albatross-like birds that soar low over the waves in search of food. More than half a million breeding pairs nest on the cliffs of Britain, with most on the Scottish coastline and Northern Isles.

Because northern fulmars can live for 40 years or more, the birds have been exposed to significant plastic debris in the seas for only a few generations. That meant the birds had not had time to adapt to the changing environment, Provencher said.

Alex Bond, a conservation biologist who studies seabirds and marine debris at the Natural History Museum in London, said: “It’s another example of the often invisible impacts that plastics can have on wildlife. It may not be enough to result in mortality, but it’s certainly not a positive thing, and combined with the pressures from other contaminants – from plastics and from the birds’ prey – contributes to the increased threats that many of the world’s seabirds are facing.”

Lyndsey Dodds, the head of UK marine policy at WWF, said: “Our throwaway culture is strangling the natural world with plastic, choking our oceans and harming our wildlife; 90% of the world’s sea birds have fragments of plastic in their stomach, and now we are hearing even their eggs are not immune from the plastic plague. We need to take urgent action globally and at home to eliminate plastics from nature by 2030.”

Featured Image: Northern fulmar, Fulmarus glacialis, nesting in Scotland. Fulmars spend most of their lives feeding at sea. Photograph: Philippe Clément/PA Images

Ian Sample, Science Editor, The Guardian

February 17, 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/feb/17/plastics-reach-remote-pristine-environments-scientists-say?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR0RoL9e0jwTQXwNutjWOA_vuBgTR5wDdGfRQktnPKOSEDilWr99Gg4JtEo

 

Microplastics found in all species of sea turtles

Tests on more than 100 sea turtles – spanning three oceans and all seven species – have revealed microplastics in the guts of every single turtle.

Researchers from the University of Exeter and Plymouth Marine Laboratory, working with the Greenpeace Research Laboratories, looked for synthetic particles (less than 5mm in length) including microplastics in 102 sea turtles in the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean.

Synthetic particles were found in all of the sea turtles, the most common being fibres, which can potentially come from sources including clothing, tyres, cigarette filters and maritime equipment such as ropes and fishing nets.

“The effect of these particles on turtles is unknown,”said lead author Dr. Emily Duncan of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

“Their small size means they can pass through the gut without causing a blockage, as is frequently reported with larger plastic fragments.

“However, future work should focus on whether microplastics may be affecting aquatic organisms more subtly.

“For example, they may possibly carry contaminants, bacteria or viruses, or they may affect the turtle at a cellular or subcellular level. This requires further investigation.”

In total, more than 800 synthetic particles were found in the 102 turtles studied.

But researchers only tested part of each animal’s gut – so the total number of particles is estimated to be about 20 times higher.

Researchers do not currently understand how synthetic particles are ingested by turtles, but the likely sources are polluted seawater and sediments, and eating via prey or plants.

Professor Bendan Godley, senior author of the study, added: “It really is a great shame that many or even all of the world’s sea turtles have now ingested microplastics.

“At the moment, this is not the main threat to this species group but it is a clear sign that we need to act to better govern global waste.”

Necropsies were carried out on the turtles after they died either by stranding or bycatch (accidental catching in fishing).

The study sites were North Carolina, USA (Atlantic), Northern Cyprus (Mediterranean) and Queensland, Australia (Pacific).

The turtles with the most synthetic particles were in the Mediterranean – thought to have higher rates of contamination than the Atlantic or Pacific – but this study’s sample sizes and methodology did not allow for detailed geographical comparisons.

Dr. Penelope Lindeque of Plymouth Marine Laboratory, said: “While this study has been successful, it does not feel like a success to have found microplastic in the gut of every single turtle we have investigated.

“From our work over the years we have found microplastic in nearly all the species of marine animals we have looked at; from tiny zooplankton at the base of the marine food web to fish larvae, dolphins and now turtles.

“This study provides more evidence that we all need to help reduce the amount of plastic waste released to our seas and maintain clean, healthy and productive oceans for future generations.”

Louise Edge, plastics campaigner at Greenpeace, said: “This important research demonstrates the breadth of our plastics pollution problem.

“Our society’s addiction to throwaway plastic is fuelling a global environmental crisis that must be tackled at source.”

 

The paper, published in the journal Global Change Biology, is entitled: “Microplastic ingestion ubiquitous in marine turtles.”

Featured image: All 102 sea turtles necropsied by scientists were found to have ingested plastics. Kirt Edblom / CC BY-SA 2.0

University of Exeter, 5 December 2018

https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_695428_en.html

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

 

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

For Wildlife, Plastic Is Turning the Ocean Into a Minefield

Plastic debris is wreaking havoc on wildlife.  From getting stuck in nets to eating plastic that they think is food, creatures worldwide are dying from material we made.

On a boat off Costa Rica, a biologist uses pliers from a Swiss army knife to try to extract a plastic straw from a sea turtle’s nostril. The turtle writhes in agony, bleeding profusely. For eight painful minutes the YouTube video ticks on; it has logged more than 20 million views, even though it’s so hard to watch. At the end the increasingly desperate biologists finally manage to dislodge a four-inch-long straw from the creature’s nose.

Raw scenes like this, which lay bare the toll of plastic on wildlife, have become familiar: The dead albatross, its stomach bursting with refuse. The turtle stuck in a six-pack ring, its shell warped from years of straining against the tough plastic. The seal snared in a discarded fishing net.

But most of the time, the harm is stealthier. Flesh-footed shearwaters, large, sooty brown seabirds that nest on islands off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand, eat more plastic as a proportion of their body mass than any other marine animal, researchers say: In one large population, 90 percent of the fledglings had already ingested some. A plastic shard piercing an intestine can kill a bird quickly. But typically the consumption of plastic just leads to chronic, unrelenting hunger.

Right: On Okinawa, Japan, a hermit crab resorts to a plastic bottle cap to protect its soft abdomen. Beachgoers collect the shells the crabs normally use, and they leave trash behind. PHOTOGRAPH BY SHAWN MILLER 
“The really sad thing about this is that they’re eating plastic thinking it’s food,” says Matthew Savoca, a marine biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Imagine you ate lunch and then just felt weak and lethargic and hungry all day. That would be very confusing.” Fish such as anchovies, Savoca has found, eat plastic because it smells like food once it’s covered with algae. Seabirds, expending energy their malnourished bodies don’t have, roam farther in search of real food, only to drag back plastic waste to feed their young.

What makes plastic useful for people—its durability and light weight—increases the threat to animals. Plastic hangs around a long time, and a lot of it floats. “Single-use plastics are the worst. Period. Bar none,” Savoca says, referring to straws, water bottles, and plastic bags. Some 700 species of marine animals have been reported—so far—to have eaten or become entangled in plastic.

We don’t fully understand plastic’s long-term impact on wildlife (nor its impact on us). We haven’t been using the stuff for very long. The first documented cases of seabirds ingesting plastic were 74 Laysan albatross chicks found on a Pacific atoll in 1966, when plastic production was roughly a twentieth of what it is today. In hindsight, those birds seem like the proverbial canaries in a coal mine.

The photographer freed this stork from a plastic bag at a landfill in Spain. One bag can kill more than once: Carcasses decay, but plastic lasts and can choke or trap again.JOHN CANCALOSI
Featured Image: An old plastic fishing net snares a loggerhead turtle in the Mediterranean off Spain. The turtle could stretch its neck above water to breathe but would have died had the photographer not freed it. “Ghost fishing” by derelict gear is a big threat to sea turtles.  PHOTOGRAPH BY JORDI CHIAS
By Natasha Daly, National Geographic
June 2018

Yet Another Dead Whale Is Grave Reminder Of Our Massive Plastic Problem

A sperm whale was found washed ashore dead after swallowing 64 pounds of plastic debris. The male sperm whale was found on the Murcian coast in southern Spain in late February, reminding us how critical plastic waste in the oceans has become.

After investigating, the El Valle Wildlife Rescue Center determined that the sperm whale was killed by gastric shock to its stomach and intestines after ingesting 64 pounds of plastic. The autopsy found plastic bags, nets, ropes, plastic sacks, and even a plastic jerrycan in the whale’s stomach and intestines.

Experts found the inner walls of the whale’s abdomen to be inflamed due to a bacterial or fungal infection. This is likely a result of the whale unable to expel the plastics from its system, resulting in peritonitis.

The male sperm whale, an endangered species protected in the US under the Endangered Species Conservation Act, weighed over 6 tonnes and measured 33 feet long. Sperm whales typically eat squid and live around the same lifespan as humans, averaging 70 years.

As a result of the whale’s death, the Murcia government launched a campaign against dumping plastic waste into the coastal town’s water. The coastal community is working to raise awareness of the ever-growing plastic problem in the oceans and the need for beach cleaning.

 It is becoming increasingly clear that plastic in our oceans is a core threat to marine life in the decades to come.  Approximately 5 trillion pieces of plastic are estimated to be floating around the world’s oceans based on a recent study. To make matters worse, marine experts believe the total weight of plastic in our oceans could outweigh fish in the world’s oceans by 2050.
With an increasing amount of plastic discarded in oceans, whale deaths due to ingestion of plastics are becoming far too common… To cope with this dilemma, many countries around the world are phasing out single-use plastic bags as typically seen in grocery stores. Below is a map of where countries are in their phasing out of low-density polyethylene plastic bags.
  • Green indicates plastic bags are banned
  • Yellow indicates a tax on some plastic bags
  • Orange indicates a voluntary tax agreement
  • Purple indicates a partial tax or ban at a regional level

  Countries that are phasing out single-use plastic bags (Wikipedia)

The European Union is pushing a transition to have all plastic recyclable or reusable by 2030 with many agencies around the world discussing phasing out non-biodegradable plastics completely.

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Yet Another Dead Whale Is Grave Reminder Of Our Massive Plastic Problem

Trevor Nance, Forbes, Science, April 9, 2018

https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/04/09/yet-another-dead-whale-is-grave-reminder-of-our-massive-plastic-problem/#baaeb156cd23

How Much Plastic do Seabirds Eat?

90% of seabirds now have plastic in their stomachs. Unless we drastically reduce the flow of plastic entering the ocean, by 2050, 99% of seabirds will have plastic in them.  For example. plastic debris can make up to 15% of a Shearwater’s body weight. For an 80 km human, that would be 12 kg. Imagine carrying 12 kg of plastic in your stomach!

“That straw you used for one drink, the spoon you used to stir your coffee, and then threw in the trash… will be around as long as the Roman coliseum has been standing. From the time Jesus Christ died, until this moment, is the time span that your “disposable” item will be polluting he earth. Is the 30 seconds of use it worth it? Just THINK ABOUT stuff before you go to grab it. Ask yourself, do I need to use this, or can I skip it this time?” Michelle Miller

 

Sperm Whales Found Full of Car Parts and Plastic

A fishing net, part of a car engine, and plastic buckets were found in the stomachs of 13 sperm whales which washed up on a German beach

Fishing gear and an engine cover are just some of the startling contents found inside the stomachs of sperm whales that recently beached themselves on Germany’s North Sea coast.

The 13 sperm whales washed up near the German state of Schleswig-Holstein earlier this year, the latest in a series of whale strandings around the North Sea. So far, more than 30 sperm whales have been found beached since the start of the year in the U.K., the Netherlands, France, Denmark, and Germany.

After a necropsy of the whales in Germany, researchers found that four of the giant marine animals had large amounts of plastic waste in their stomachs. The garbage included a nearly 43-foot-long (13-meter-long) shrimp fishing net, a plastic car engine cover, and the remains of a plastic bucket, according to a press release from Wadden Sea National Park in Schleswig-Holstein.

However, “the marine litter did not directly cause the stranding,” says Ursula Siebert, head of the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, whose team examined the sperm whales.

Instead, the researchers suspect that the whales died because the animals accidentally ventured into shallow seas.

. . . According to the WDC, whales and dolphins may strand for many reasons, such as excessive noise pollution from ships and drilling surveys or even subtle shifts in Earth’s magnetic field. In addition, pilot whales that beached off the coast of Scotland three years ago showed high levels of toxins from ocean pollution, which scientists linked to stress on their brains that may have caused disorientation.

  

Schleswig-Holstein environment minister Robert Habeck holds debris found inside beached sperm whales in a picture posted to Instagram.  (Photo Robert Habeck,Instagram)

Sperm whale swims near the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. Photography by Brian Skerry, National Geographic Creative

. . . Siebert adds that if the whales had survived, the garbage in their guts might have caused digestive problems down the line. At the time of death, the animals were in decent shape and, in addition to the debris, the scientists found thousands of squid beaks in the whales’ stomachs.

But when whales and dolphins ingest lots of marine litter, either accidentally or because they mistake the trash for prey, it can cause physical damage to their digestive systems. The trash may eventually give the animals the sensation of being full and reduce their instinct to feed, leading to malnutrition.

While the garbage may not have been lethal for these whales, “the plastic debris in their stomachs is a horrible indictment of humans,” adds Hal Whitehead, a whale researcher at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Featured image: Sperm whales found with ingested car parts and other plastic. Photo credit: Facebook

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Sperm Whales Found Full of Car Parts and Plastic