They found 40 kilos of plastic bags in the belly of a whale

March 19, 2019

The animal was discovered east of the city of Davao, Philippines. This is the largest amount of plastic found in a whale.

The whale was found on March 16 east of Davao City. The museum workers from the bone collectors of the Philippines They said: "It contained the largest amount of plastic we have ever seen in a whale. It's disgusting"

The specialists claimed that in the animal that they found "40 kilos of plastic bags including 16 bags of rice, 4 of the type to store bananas and several plastic bags for shopping"

"It was full of plastic, it was nothing more than uninterrupted plastic," said Darrell Blatchley, marine biologist and museum ecologist who examined the animal.

He added: "He was compact to the point that his stomach was literally as hard as a baseball. this animal has not been suffering for days or weeks, but for months, even a year or more"

The Philippine Office of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources called the specialist to warn of the appearance of the animal, which appeared weak and vomited blood. After a few hours, the whale is dead. "The whale died of hunger because she could not feed herself. His stomach was full"Said the director of the museum.

Desperate: a whale opened his mouth and swallowed a diver

This is not the first time that a whale appears with signs of swallowing pounds of plastic. In November, a sperm whale was found on a list in southern Indonesia and contained 115 plastic cups.

The use of disposable plastic poses a particular problem in some Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines. A marine biologist in the region claims that most of the whales and dolphins examined in recent years have died from the ingestion of plastic waste.

According to a 2015 report by environmental organizations Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Center for Business and the Environment, five Asian countries – China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand – are responsible 60% of plastic waste in the oceans.