'Death by plastic': Is ocean garbage killing whales?

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PARIS - MILLIONS of tonnes of plastic debris dumped each year in the world's oceans could pose a lethal threat to whales, according to a scientific assessment to be presented at a key international whaling forum this week.

 

A review of research literature from the last two decades reveals hundreds of cases in which cetaceans - an order including 80-odd species of whales, dolphins and porpoises - have been sickened or killed by marine litter.

 

Entanglement in plastic bags and fishing gear have long been identified as a threat to sea birds, turtles and smaller cetaceans. For large ocean-dwelling mammals, however, ingestion of such refuse is also emerging as a serious cause of disability and death, experts say. Grisly examples abound.

 

In 2008, two sperm whales stranded on the California coast were found to have a huge amount - 205kg in one alone - of fish nets and other synthetic debris in their guts. One of the 15m animals had a ruptured stomach, and the other, half-starved, had a large plug of wadded plastic blocking its digestive tract.

 

Seven male sperm whales stranded on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy in 2009 were stuffed with half-digested squids beaks, fishing hooks, ropes and plastic objects. In 2002, a dead minke whale washed up on the Normandy coast of France had nearly a tonne of plastic in its stomach, including bags from two British supermarkets.

 

'Cuvier's beaked whales in the north-east Atlantic seem to have particularly high incidences of ingestion and death from plastic bags,' notes Mark Simmonds, author of the report and a member of scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which meets this week from July 11-14 on the British island of Jersey.

straitstimes.com