News
Source: Yahoo! News
Around 90 pounds (40 kilograms) of various plastic materials have been recovered from the stomach of a Cuvier’s beaked whale that beached last week in Mabini town in the Davao region of Mindanao, Philippines.
A necropsy examination of the 15.4-foot juvenile, conducted by American marine biologist Darrell Blatchley and Dr. Elaine Vera Belvis of the Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Fishery Management Regulatory and Enforcement Division, revealed the presence of “16 rice sacks, 4 banana plantation style bags and multiple shopping bags,” according to a post on Blatchley’s Facebook site. The examination also recovered squid beaks and reported the presence of parasites in the whale’s stomach and kidney.
Blatchley said that of the 61 whales at his museum, at least 57 of them “died due to human causes in the last 10 years.” Attributing the death of the whale to the ingestion of plastic, he urged the government to take action to curb the indiscriminate dumping of waste in waterways and the ocean. “This whale had the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale. It’s disgusting,” he said.
Read more here.
RELATED ARTICLES
LATEST EQUIPMENT
GoPro HERO13 Black | Seacam Housing for Sony a9 III | Nauticam NA-Z6III | Ikelite Housing for Canon EOS R5 II | Backscatter Hybrid Flash HF-1 |