Another whale with a belly full of plastic debris was found dead, this time in the Philippines.
Scientists discovered almost 90 pounds of plastic debris inside the young beaked whale, including 16 rice sacks, four banana plantation-style bags and multiple shopping bags, according to a social media post by researchers at the D'Bone Collector Museum, a natural history institution, which performed a necropsy on the marine mammal.
Museum founder and marine biologist Darrell Blatchley called the discovery “disgusting.”
"This whale had the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale," Blatchley said on Facebook.
Scientists said the whale died from gastric shock and starvation, according to media reports.
Blatchley called for government action "against those who continue to treat the waterways and ocean as a dumpster."
A young pilot whale was found in the waters off Thailand last June with a stomach full of plastic shopping bags and other plastic debris. Veterinarians were unable to save the starving whale.
Scientists also discovered 64 pounds of plastic garbage inside a young sperm whale that washed up on a beach in southern Spain in last February and believe the plastic trash also killed it.
Over the past 10 years, in the Philippines alone, scientists have recovered 61 dead whales and dolphins that have died from fishing nets, dynamite fishing and plastic garbage, CNN reported, and four were pregnant.
“This cannot continue. The Philippines needs to change from the children up or nothing will be left, Blatchley said.
A report from the Ocean Conservancy in 2017 found that that the majority of plastics pollution in the oceans originates from rivers in five Asian countries: Thailand, China, Indonesia Vietnam and the Philippines.
Cox Media Group
