A beached sperm whale (not pictured) washed up dead on a Spanish beach in February. An autopsy reveals it had 65 pounds of plastic in its stomach.
The 33-foot-long (10 meters) whale was found dead on the beach at Cabo de Palos, near Murcia, Spain, on Feb. 27. Researchers at El Valle Wildlife Recovery Center performed the autopsy and determined that the whale likely died from a form of abdominal infection called peritonitis. The whale simply could not expel the vast amount of plastic it swallowed, the researchers said, causing the mammal's digestive system to become lethally impacted or infected
This news provides another vivid example of the staggering amount of plastic waste humans are dumping into the world's oceans.
This debris finds its way not only into large mammals like whales but also into birds, fish, sea turtles and even the deepest-dwelling crustaceans in the Mariana Trench