Dead whale in Philippines had 40kg of plastic bags in its stomach
A young whale died of “dehydration and starvation” after consuming 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of plastic bags.
Marine biologists and volunteers from the D’Bone Collector Museum in Davao City, in the Philippine island of Mindanao, were shocked to discover the brutal cause of death for the young Cuvier’s beaked whale, which washed ashore on Saturday.
This is only the most recent incident in which a whale has died after ingesting massive amounts of plastic. In November of last year, a sperm whale washed up in Indonesia with 13 pounds of plastic in its stomach. Another, a pilot whale, died in Thailand in June of 2018 after ingesting 17 pounds of plastic, including 80 plastic bags.
The 15.4-foot long whale was stranded in Mabini town on March 15 where local officials and fishermen tried to release it, only for the creature to return to shallow water, said the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
Environmental groups have tagged the Philippines as one of the world’s biggest ocean polluters due to its reliance on single-use plastic. While plastic pollution is a major problem worldwide, it is especially bad in southeast Asia. A 2017 Ocean Conservancy study found that more plastic enters the oceans from China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam than from all other countries combined.
