“When plastic ingestion occurs, it blocks the digestive tract, gets lodged in animals windpipes cutting airflow causing suffocation, or fills the stomach, resulting in malnutrition, starvation and potentially death.” Caption and Photo source: © SAF — Coastal Care.
Excerpts;
A team of scientists at Cardiff University has, for the first time, developed a way of predicting the size of plastics different animals are likely to ingest.
The researchers, from the University’s Water Research Institute, looked at the gut contents of more than 2,000 animals to create a simple equation to predict the size of a plastic item an animal can eat, based on the length of its body…
Read Full Article, PhysOrg (03-27-2020)
Why do ocean animals eat plastic? National Geographic – MSN (12-05-2019)
Taste, not appearance, drives corals to eat plastics; Duke University (10-24-2017)
Video captures moment plastic enters food chain, BBC News (03-11-2017)
A scientist has filmed the moment plastic microfibre is ingested by plankton, illustrating how the material is affecting life beneath the waves. The footage shows one way that plastic waste could be entering the marine and global food chain…
Whale and shark species at increasing risk from microplastic pollution – study; Guardian UK (02-05-2018)
Whales, some sharks and other marine species such as rays are increasingly at risk from microplastics in the oceans, a new study published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, suggests…
Beached sperm whale found with 220 pounds of trash in his stomach; CBS News (12-03-2019)
Dead whale found with 40 kilograms of plastic bags in its stomach; CNN (03-18-2019)
A young whale whose carcass washed up in the Philippines died of “dehydration and starvation” after consuming 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of plastic bags, scientists have found….
Newly identified fish nurseries are choked with plastic; Smithsonian Magazine (11-12-2019)
A new study reveals that it’s not just adult sea animals that are getting a gullet full of plastic. Larval fish are inundated with plastic fragments in their nursery habitats and they’re eating those pieces along with their natural food sources…
Plastics found in stomachs of deepest sea creatures; Guardian UK (11-15-2017)
The study, led by academics at Newcastle University, found animals from trenches across the Pacific Ocean were contaminated with fibres that probably originated from plastic bottles, packaging and synthetic clothes…
The Plastic Found In a Single Turtle’s Stomach, Independent UK (03-24-2011)
90 Percent of Seabirds Have Plastic in Their Stomachs, Newsweek (09-01-2015)
Great Barrier Reef Corals Eat Plastic; Science Daily (02-27-2015)
UN report finds marine debris harming more than 800 species, costing countries millions; United Nations (12-05-2016)
Marine debris is negatively affecting more than 800 animal species and causing serious losses to many countries’ economies, according to a United Nations report launched December 5th, 2016…
Plastic Pollution: When The Mermaids Cry, The Great Plastic Tide, Coastal Care
Washed out on our coasts in obvious and clearly visible form, the plastic pollution spectacle blatantly unveiling on our beaches is only the prelude of the greater story that unfolded further away in the world’s oceans, yet mostly originating from where we stand: the land…
