Every year hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales, and various oceanic mammals, and more than 1 million seabirds perish from sea pollution and ingestion or entanglement in marine debris mostly due to plastic products. Marine debris is man-made waste that is directly or indirectly disposed of in oceans, rivers, and other waterways. Plastic products on average takes about 450 years to decompose and as of recently there is an estimated 93 to 236 thousand metric tons of plastic floating around in the ocean and this number continues to rise (World Economic Forum, 2016). So to put it into perspective, animals wouldn't know if these waste is harmful to them until it's too late, a curious seal may mistake a loop of plastic that is used to secure boxes as something to play with and get dangerously entangled, a floating plastic bags may look like a tasty jelly fish to a sea turtle. Here is a list of marine animals and how they are affected by plastic.
Sea turtle
Sea turtles like a lot of other animals’ mistake plastic an edible food source. The ingestion of plastic is bad for the health of these animals as plastic cannot be digested thus causing their digestive system to get blocked. A study was done in the year 2013 and it shows that an estimated 50% of sea turtles are ingesting plastic at an alarming rate and are dying because of it due to their clogged up digestive system (One Green Planet, 2016). Young and healthy turtles are dying due to ingesting plastic and this is part of the reason turtles are slowly going extinct.
Seals and Sea lions
With a variety of debris in the sea, it's no surprise
that marine animals are getting entangled in them. The debris floating in the
ocean would include fishing nets, fishing lines, and lures (Mail Online, 2016).
Sea lions and seals that gets entangled in these debris are most likely to die
due to the debris strangling them or cutting into their flesh and causing
infections.
Seabird
source: http://conservationmagazine.org
Birds are one of the most affected species especially the
Laysan albatross. This is due to their unique hunting ability. The albatross
dives into the ocean to catch fishes, squids and other food. Their beaks often
skims the surface of the water due to this technique and as such plastic debris
floating on the surface of the ocean are scooped up and ingested by these birds
as well. A shocking 98% of albatross has been found with plastic waste in their
digestive system. These plastic will not only block the digestive systems, it
also punctures vital internal organs causing death to the animal.
Written by: Benjamin
Reference
Mail Online. (2016). Five seals avoid death after being saved from deadly entanglements. [online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2636241/Five-seals-avoid-death-saved-deadly-entanglements.html [Accessed 13 Nov. 2016].
One Green Planet. (2016). These 5 Marine Animals Are Dying Because of Our Plastic Trash … Here’s How We Can Help. [online] Available at: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/marine-animals-are-dying-because-of-our-plastic-trash/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2016].
World Economic Forum. (2016). How much plastic is there in the ocean?. [online] Available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/how-much-plastic-is-there-in-the-ocean/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2016].
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