Over 80 Plastic Bags From A Sperm Whale's Stomach

The grim discovery was the second sperm whale with its stomach chocked with plastics since the one found in Spain. (read more about this in my article)

Last year May, a dying pilot whale struggling to swim and breathe was spotted in the southern province of Songkhla, in a southern Thailand canal. A veterinary team rescued the whale and worked for five consecutive days to revive the malnourished mammal, but was unsuccessful. The pilot whale had starved because the plastic waste prevented it from ingesting food. The rubbish made it sick and unable to hunt to feed itself.

Just before the whale died on June 1, it vomited five plastic bags. An autopsy found another 80 plastic bags and other plastic debris in the whale’s abdomen that weighed 17 pounds (eight kilograms)- over 12 times the weight of a standard basketball.

30 billion pounds of plastics are found in the oceans every year. In order to help diminish the chances of animals mistakenly ingesting plastics, we must avoid single-use plastics like bags and straws from stores.