Human negligence causes blue whales to ingest plastic
Nature is being destroyed. It is endangered in many ways. Sometimes it can be understood directly, at other times indirectly. Recently, an environmentalist turned scientist was shocked by such a news. It is known that the world’s largest animal blue whale or blue whale is eating tons of plastic every day! Why? Did the whales change their diet? No, whales eat various fish and animals in the sea. But due to human negligence, the world’s oceans are filled with various types of plastic. Even small particles of plastic are spreading in the vast waters of the sea. And all that plastic is going into the stomachs of marine animals like blue whales. Recently researchers have published a report in this regard. From that report it is known– blue whales, humpbacks and fin whales go through huge amounts of plastic in their stomachs every day! There is no doubt that this is a serious concern for the health of marine mammals.
The researchers also provided an estimate of the amount of microplastics ingested by three species of whales—blue whales, fin whales, and humpbacks—off the U.S. Pacific coast. The researchers placed suction-cupped electronic tag devices on the backs of 126 blue whales, 65 humpback whales and 29 fin whales. There was a camera, microphone, GPS locator and a device that could measure the whales’ daily intake of microplastics. Scientists have made a list of that amount. And from that study, it is known that blue whales eat about 10 million or 10 million pieces of microplastic (about 95 pounds) every day! For fin whales the number is about 6 million per day (weighing about 57 pounds), and humpback whales eat about 4 million pieces of microplastic (up to 38 pounds of plastic) per day!
Stanford University marine biologist Matthew Savoca, co-author of the study published in the journal Nature Communications, said these whales are still ingesting millions of microplastics and microfibers every day in moderately polluted seawater off the US West Coast! Research has shown the feeding patterns of whales, their food intake, etc. Also shown — how whales are forced to ingest microplastics as the North American ocean current meets currents in relatively polluted areas such as the California Current!
