The examination of a dead whale that washed ashore in the Philippines unearthed over 40kg of plastic bags in its stomach, according to the D’ Bone Collector Museum in Davao City.
In a Facebook post, the natural history museum said that the body of the juvenile male Cuvier’s beaked whale that they recovered March 16 had the most plastic in its digestive system of any whale they had ever seen. Amongst that 40kg of material, they identified “16 rice sacks. 4 banana plantation style bags and multiple shopping bags“.
Marine biologist and founder of the museum Darrell Blatchley told CNN that he was shocked at the volume of plastic they found, saying that the amount was so big that it was beginning to calcify.
Cuvier’s beaked whales are a species of deep-diving beaked whale that grow to a length of around six or seven metres.
Last year, the autopsy of a pilot whale that died in southern Thailand revealed that it had died from eating 8kg of plastic bags.
