PEOPLE ARE KILLING ANIMALS
TRASH KILLS ANIMALS. DON'T BE A KILLER.
Crimes Against Marine Life
UNESCO estimates that 100,000 marine mammals die because of plastic pollution each year.
plastic blocks food from traveling from stomach to intestine, essentially starving the animal. Other times, sharp edges poke holes in their internal organs.
-
People toss an approximate 2.5 million pieces of plastic into the oceans hourly.
-
Trash in the ocean kills more than one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles each year through ingestion and entanglement.
-
Many dolphins, turtles, and sharks mistake balloons, plastic bags, and other debris for food and will eat them without being able to digest them. They then slowly starve to death from the obstruction or suffer internal trauma from the foreign object.
-
Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been lost or left behind by in the ocean by fishermen. These nets entangle dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, manatees, whales, and other sea creatures. Animals caught in ghost nets starve, suffocate, and bleed to death if not freed. If an animal’s appendage is caught, it may cut off circulation to the limb and the animal can die of infection.
700 Marine Species Might Go Extinct Because of Plastic Pollution.
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/marine-species-extinction-and-plastic-pollution/
Found in Whales Stomachs
Drums, golf balls, volleyballs, clothing, shoes, plastic bags, plastic food wrappers , greenhouse sheeting, cigarette butts ,115 drinking cups
-
Ten-year-old whale was found dead on a beach in Scotland. A necropsy revealed 220 pounds of plastic and other trash congealed in clumps in his digestive system
-
Plastic bags, tubing, gloves, bundles of rope, netting, tubing, and cups.
-
November 2019, a 22 foot-long sperm whale washed ashore in Wales. Examiners found plastic sheeting in its stomach.
-
May 2019, the carcass of the young sperm whale, estimated to have been 7 years old, was found on a beach in Cefalù, Italy with a stomach full of plastic.
-
April, 2020 a pregnant sperm whale washed up on a beach in Sardinia with nearly 50 pounds’ worth of plastic bags, containers, and tubing in her stomach.
-
March, a 1,100-pound Cuvier’s beaked whale was recovered in the Philippines filled with 88 pounds of plastic bags, fishing line, and 88 rice sacks—on top of the plastic bags, and the snack bags, and big tangles of nylon ropes, y
-
A beached sperm whale was found in Indonesia last year with more than 1,000 pieces of plastic inside.
-
2019- 50 marine mammals washed up on U.K. shores, all with plastic in their stomachs. A striking amount of these animals were cetaceans -- whales, dolphins, or porpoises -- so the question is: how did all of them end up with the same fate?
Small crustaceans like krill and tiny fish like anchovies often end up inadvertently consuming microplastics. Whales, the largest animals ever known to have existed, have a voracious appetite for these critters. A blue whale eats between 2 and 4 tons of krill per day.
Dolphins
-
Biologists in Florida euthanized a baby rough-toothed dolphin with two plastic bags and a shredded balloon in its stomach.
Turtles
-
The problem is that sea turtles don’t know what plastic is, and they don’t get to choose.
-
Research suggests that 52% of the world’s turtles have eaten plastic waste. The reasons are simple: a floating plastic bag can look like a lot of jellyfish, algae, or other species that make up a large component of the sea turtles’ diets.
-
loggerheads ate plastic 17% of the time they encountered it, likely mistaking it for jellyfish. This figure rocketed to 62% for green turtles probably on the hunt for algae.
-
However, it’s not just ingesting plastic that causes problems for turtles. Entanglement in abandoned fishing nets can easily kill them through drowning or preventing individuals from escaping predators or hunting.
-
Sharp plastics can rupture internal organs and bags can cause intestinal blockages leaving turtles unable to feed, resulting in starvation.
-
Even if they survive, consuming plastic can make turtles unnaturally buoyant, which can stunt their growth and lead to slow reproduction rates.
-
Turtles can't breathe because plastic straws get stuck in their nostrils. Birds are mistaking plastic for food, feeding it to their hungry offspring.
Seals
-
A severely malnourished and dehydrated sea lion pup has been discovered in Encinitas, California with a diver’s mask wrapped around its neck.
RESOURCES AND MORE NEWS:
Sea World employees rescue Sea lion strangling from plastic ribbon on Boomer's Beach
Seal with Knife
https://www.travelweekly.com.au/article/knife-wielding-seal-reminds-travellers-not-to-litter/
Heartbreaking Pics Of Seal With Frisbee Stuck Around Its Neck Is Proof We've Failed Our Planet
Two Hawke's Bay seal pups have been mauled to death by dogs in two separate incidents in the past month, prompting a plea to the public to help protect the animals.
Baby seal stranded on rocks because water is full of plastic rubbish
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/22/baby-seal-stranded-rocks-water-full-plastic-rubbish-9641227/
Horsey beach release for injured Norfolk seal Pinkafo
A seal found with "one of the worst types of wound" seen by experts, caused by a plastic ring cutting deep into its neck, has been returned to the wild.
How a Seal Pup Died With a Plastic Wrapper in Its Stomach
A flimsy film of plastic clogged the sick pup’s intestines and could have catalyzed its death.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/05/seal-plastic-death-climate-change-animals/
Sharks
scientists found an entire suit of medieval armor in the stomach of a shark, though as to how it ended up there, they were clueless.
Stingray stingray died from swallowing a pack of cigarettes, a book, an empty bottle and lastly a digital camera!
https://worldofbuzz.com/stingray-found-dead-stomach-containing-book-camera-bottle-packet-cigarettes/
The underwater footage which was taken at Manta Bay in Bali showcases the problem of plastic pollution, the weight of which is set to exceed the weight of fish in our oceans by 2050.
Manta rays and whale sharks in Indonesia are consuming 63 PIECES of plastic pollution per hour, study says
Fish
whole 500ml plastic bottle was found inside the stomach of a monkfish by a fisherman in South Korea.
Report for the first time the presence of macroplastic debris in a jellyfish species. Such novel target to plastic pollution highlights an under studied vector of marine litter along marine trophic web, raising further concern over the impact on marine wildlife.
25% of Fish Sold at Markets Contain Plastic or Man-Made Debris
Roughly a quarter of the fish sampled from fish markets in California and Indonesia contained man-made debris—plastic or fibrous material—in their guts, according to a study from the University of California, Davis and Hasanuddin University in Indonesia.
According to a recent study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, an estimated 570,000 hermit crabs die after climbing into plastic debris, confusing it for empty shells every year. It is considered to be the first study quantifying the population impacts caused by plastics on any species.
Microplastic Found In Philippine Mussels—Risks Ocean Biodiversity
https://www.pinterest.com/GreenEcoServices/animals-and-ocean-trash/
Plastic pollution has killed half a million hermit crabs that confused trash for shells