A young whale washed up in the Philippines had died from “gastric shock” after consuming 40 kg of plastic bags. Marine biologists and volunteers from the D’Bone Collector Museum in Davao city were shocked to discover the brutal cause of death of the young Cuvier beaked whale, which washed ashore on Saturday.
In a statement on its Facebook page, museum officials said they uncovered 40 kilos of plastic bags in the whale’s stomach after conducting an autopsy. The use of single-use plastic is rampant in south-east Asia. A 2017 report by Ocean Conservancy stated that China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam have been dumping more plastic into the ocean than the rest of the world combined.
A marine biologist at the D’Bone Collector Museum said that in the 10 years they have examined dead whales and dolphins, 57 of them were found to have died due to accumulated rubbish and plastic in their stomachs. Last June, a whale died in Thailand after swallowing more than 80 plastic bags, which weighed up to 8 kg
