Cuvier's Beaked Whale - NOAA Fisheries
Plastic in the ocean is unfortunately not a new thing and it is becoming old news. Every bird we see that has turned up dead with pieces of plastic in its stomach or a sea turtle with a plastic straw up its nose brings up feelings of shame, sadness and anger, but are we doing enough?
Well ready yourself for another shocking story regarding plastic in our oceans. Cuvier’s beaked whale or the goose-beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) is the most widely distributed (in deep, offshore waters from the tropics to the cool, temperate seas) and most frequently seen beaked whale. They have been documented feeding mainly on squid, but also prey on deep-sea fish.
On March 16, 2019 an emaciated juvenile Cuvier’s beaked whale was found dead on a beach in the town of Mabini in the Philippines. A necropsy was performed on the 4.7 metre youngster by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and members of the D'Bone Collector Museum in Davao City. It was apparent that something was off right away.
"As we started to cut it open, I put my hand down inside the stomach, immediately hitting hard debris", "It was obvious that it wasn't its normal food, because this animal should be eating squids and fishes." Said Darrell Blatchley, owner of the D'Bone Collector Museum. As the necropsy continued this poor whale was crammed full of plastic bags. In fact, this whale had 88 lbs of calcified plastic in its stomach, so much plastic veterinarians mistook it for a pregnant female.
Darrel Blatchley pulling plastic bags from the stomach of the whale - Mary Gay Blatchly
"This animal has been suffering for months, if not even possibly a year, to get to that point of the plastic being compacted," Blatchley said.
"And with the stomach acids trying to digest the plastic, it's producing more and more stomach acids, which are also then eating the lining of the stomach. So the normal things like the squid beaks and stuff were actually starting to puncture the stomach lining, which towards the end, right before it died, it was actually vomiting up blood."
Blatchly hypothesized instead of diving deeper to find its normal prey, squid, it was unable to dive so just kept skimming plastic from shallower surface waters. Eventually, he said, the creature starved to death, with dehydration and starvation as the official causes of death.
Plastic is a huge problem and I don’t need to ramble on about it, but more than half the plastic waste in the oceans allegedly comes from five countries, being China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam according to the Ocean Conservancy . Having recently travelled and spent time in Indonesia I can definitely speak to this point. The amount of plastic was shocking.
So to end this post I urge people to cease the use of single use plastic and do you part!
