Killed by plastic: 80 bags in whale’s stomach
HE should have been free to roam the seas for decades to come.
Instead, this pilot whale endured a long, agonising death, unable to hunt food because his stomach was filled with more than 80 plastic bags.
The creature was found in a canal in southern Thailand, surrounded by plastic he had regurgitated after mistaking it for food.
Despite a five-day effort to save him, the young pilot whale died on Friday – the victim of a manmade tragedy.
A recent UK Government report warned that the scourge of plastic in the world’s oceans is expected to triple in just a decade.
Thai marine officials carried out a post-mortem examination to highlight the devastating impact plastic bags are having on sea life, as the country’s government conyear siders a similar levy to the UK’s. They found the whale’s stomach was filled with 17lb of black plastic bags, making it impossible to eat enough nutritious food.
The officials released disturbing photographs of the inside of the sea creature’s stomach to graphically illustrate how it met its gruesome death.
They also laid out the large bags across the floor.
Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine biologist and lecturer at Kasetsart University, said around 300 marine animals, including sea turtles and dolphins, die every in Thai waters after ingesting plastic. ‘If you have 80 plastic bags in your stomach, you die,’ he said. ‘It’s a huge problem. We use a lot of plastic.’
Despite their name, pilot whales are one of the largest members of the dolphin family. They feed mainly on squid, but are known to eat octopus and small fish when squid are not available.
Growing to nearly 20ft in length, they live in family groups with offspring staying in their mother’s pods throughout their lives.
Jatuporn Buruspat, head of Thailand’s Marine and Coastal Resources Department, said the whale probably thought the floating plastic bags were food.
‘This plastic rubbish made the whale sick and unable to hunt for food,’ he added.
The Daily Mail has led campaigns against plastic waste for the past ten years, including the call to charge 5p to cut the number of single-use bags and for a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles.
Sir David Attenborough highlighted the plight of the oceans in his Blue Planet II series, triggering a huge public reaction against throwaway plastic waste and its deadly impact on nature.
Plastic pollution in the sea could reach 150million tons by 2025 – treble the amount estimated in 2015 – the Foresight Future of the Sea Report said.
Efforts to reduce plastic pollution should focus on stopping it entering the sea, developing new biodegradable materials and public awareness campaigns, the report advised.
Yesterday campaigners said the whale was the latest victim of man’s thoughtless behaviour.
In April, a 32ft sperm whale was washed up on a beach in southern Spain that had swallowed 64lb of rubbish including black bin bags, netting, ropes and even a plastic jerry can.
Thirteen sperm whales washed up on beaches around Germany in 2016 had plastic or other rubbish in their stomachs, including car parts, buckets, and in one case a 50ft fishing net.
Last week a baby seal off the coast of Britain died after eating a piece of plastic ‘the size of a sweet wrapper’. The harp seal was found dead, stranded on a beach on the Isle of Skye.
Globally, eight million tons of plastic – bottles, packaging and other waste – are dumped into the ocean every year, killing marine life and entering the human food chain, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
Thailand is one of the world’s biggest consumers of plastic bags and Mr Buruspat said his department planned to raise public awareness of the problem on World Oceans Day on June 8.
‘We will use the whale case and invite all sectors to show their intentions on how to reduce the use of plastic in Thailand,’ he said.