A Whale has died after it swallowed more than 80 plastic bags in waters off the coast of Thailand.
The small male pilot whale vomited bags as marine rescuers fought to save it.
After the whale died, a post-mortem took place and found that bags weighing 1st 3lb were inside the marine mammal, Thailand's Department of Marine and Coastal Resources said on Facebook.
The plastic bags made it impossible for the whale to eat any nutritious food, experts have said.
Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine biologist, said: "If you have 80 plastic bags in your stomach, you die.
"It's a huge problem. We use a lot of plastic."
He claimed that 300 marine animals die in the area each year because they swallow plastic items discarded into the sea.
The dead animals include pilot whales, sea turtles and dolphins.
The Ocean Conservancy found last year that Thailand is in the top-five for plastic pollution in the sea.
China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam made up the rest of the top-five.
It is thought that 13million tonnes of plastic is polluting the sea because of these countries alone.
The whale was found barely alive on Monday near the country's border with Malaysia.
Rescuers spent four days trying to keep it alive in the canal where it was found.
They used buoys to keep the stricken creature afloat and a sunshade was built around it to try to protect it from the scorching sun.
However it died yesterday, despite best efforts to save it.
The small male pilot whale vomited bags as marine rescuers fought to save it.
After the whale died, a post-mortem took place and found that bags weighing 1st 3lb were inside the marine mammal, Thailand's Department of Marine and Coastal Resources said on Facebook.
The plastic bags made it impossible for the whale to eat any nutritious food, experts have said.
Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine biologist, said: "If you have 80 plastic bags in your stomach, you die.
"It's a huge problem. We use a lot of plastic."
He claimed that 300 marine animals die in the area each year because they swallow plastic items discarded into the sea.
The dead animals include pilot whales, sea turtles and dolphins.
The Ocean Conservancy found last year that Thailand is in the top-five for plastic pollution in the sea.
China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam made up the rest of the top-five.
It is thought that 13million tonnes of plastic is polluting the sea because of these countries alone.
The whale was found barely alive on Monday near the country's border with Malaysia.
Rescuers spent four days trying to keep it alive in the canal where it was found.
They used buoys to keep the stricken creature afloat and a sunshade was built around it to try to protect it from the scorching sun.
However it died yesterday, despite best efforts to save it.
Music: "Teller of the Tales" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Source: Thailand Marine Department, The Sun, Facebook
Comments
Post a Comment