Photo credit: Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center
A young 45-foot female sei whale was spotted in the Elizabeth River in August 2014, but it’s distance from home was the least of its concerns.
The Elizabeth River is an industrial tributary to the Chesapeake Bay, and a little too far from the Atlantic Ocean where endangered sei whales are normally found.
The Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center was called after the disoriented whale was spotted. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said aquarium research coordinator Susan Barco.
After following the young whale for a few days to protect it from colliding with a ship, the whale was found dead.
Thanks to a necropsy, the aquarium discovered the whale had swallowed a piece of rigid plastic that lacerated its stomach. She was not able to eat, then was struck by a boat and had a fractured vertebrae.
“It was a very long and painful decline,” Barco said.
That piece of plastic was determined to be a broken DVD case, most likely swallowed when she was feeding at the ocean surface.
“It makes me very sad that a piece of plastic that was not disposed of properly ended up killing a whale,” Susan Barco told National Geographic. “It was a preventable death.”
Unfortunately, the eating of plastics by marine animals is a common problem, especially for seabirds and turtles, because it is confused with food.
Once they eat the plastic, the stomach and intestines are obstructed and their life is at risk from starvation and internal trauma.
With a belly full of trash, whales are slowly and painfully starving to death. A recent study revealed that 56 percent of known cetacean species have ingested debris.
“The whales that wash up on the beach are only a small percentage of those that die,” said Frances Gulland, a senior scientist with the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California.
The risk is higher for sperm whales who may confuse the trash for squid.
“Every sperm whale that I have necropsied has had a lot of nets and pieces of plastic” in its stomach, Gulland said. “They slowly died of starvation. It was the first time that I had seen a large whale die from eating garbage debris.”
The solution to this problem seems obvious. Recycling and proper waste management can prevent these horribly unnecessary deaths.
Source: National Geographic