Manta rays and whale sharks consuming massive amounts of plastics near Indonesia

NOVEMBER 20, 2019 REPORT

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org 

Various sizes and types of plastic debris found in manta ray vomit material (n = 1) from Nusa Penida, Indonesia. Larger debris are photographed under high (A,B) and low (C) magnification, and smaller debris (D) under high magnification. Credit: Frontiers in Marine Science (2019). DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00679 

A team of researchers from Australia, the U.S., Indonesia and New Zealand has measured the amount of plastics that manta rays and whale sharks are ingesting off the coast of Indonesia. In their paper published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, the group describes how they measured the ingestion of plastics by the marine animals. 

There is a large amount of plastic in the ocean due to a variety of human activities. In recent years, scientists have been trying to better understand the impacts of the plastic on marine life. In this new effort, the researchers focused on manta rays and whale sharks, and plastics in the ocean off the coast of parts of Indonesia. 

The work began after one of the team members went swimming off the coast of Indonesia and found the waters teeming with plastics. Curious about the impact of so much plastic on marine creatures that sift plankton for their survival, they undertook a study to learn more. 

The work involved tossing fine-meshed nets over the side of a boat and trolling to mimic the way mantas and whale sharks feed—they noted the mesh was fine enough to collect both plankton and very tiny bits of plastic. They noted also that they trolled areas that were known to be feeding grounds for both marine animals.

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Thailand's 'sweetheart' dugong dies with plastic in stomach

Vets say plastic caused orphan mammal’s infection and should serve as warning about pollution

An orphaned dugong named Marium, who became an internet star after being rescued in Thailand in April, has died.

Veterinarians caring for the dugong off the island of Koh Libong, in south Thailand’s Trang province, said an infection caused by ingesting plastic contributed to her death. They added that the loss of the animal, named “the nation’s sweetheart” by Thailand’s department of marine and coastal resources (DMCR), should serve as a warning about the effects of plastic waste on wildlife.

Dugongs – marine mammals that grow up to three metres long – are vulnerable to extinction, with up to only 250 believed to be living in Thai waters. A team of around 10 vets plus 40 volunteers looked after Marium in shallow water off Koh Libong, after discovering her alone and malnourished in nearby Krabi province.

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WWF sounds alarm after 48 lbs of plastic found in dead whale

APRIL 1, 2019

by Colleen Barry

An 8-meter (26-foot) sperm whale was found dead off Sardinia with 22 kilograms (48.5 pounds) of plastic in its belly, prompting the World Wildlife Foundation to sound an alarm Monday over the dangers of plastic waste in the Mediterranean Sea.

The environmental group said the garbage recovered from the sperm whale's stomach included a corrugated tube for electrical works, plastic plates, shopping bags, tangled fishing lines and a washing detergent package with its bar code still legible.

The female whale beached off the northern coast of Sardinia last week, within the vast Pelagos marine sanctuary that was created as a haven for dolphins, whales and other sea life.

"It is the first time we have been confronted with an animal with such a huge quantity of garbage," Cinzia Centelegghe, a biologist with the University of Padova, told the Turin daily La Stampa.

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Indonesia: dead whale had 1,000 pieces of plastic in stomach

Sperm whale washed up in Sulawesi had flip-flops, bottles, bags and 115 drinking cups in its stomach

Associated Press in Jakarta

Tue 20 Nov 2018 10.27 GMTLast modified on Tue 20 Nov 2018 10.42 GMT

A dead whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had a large lump of plastic waste in its stomach, including flip-flops and 115 drinking cups, a park official has said, causing concern among environmentalists and government officials in one of the world’s largest plastic polluting countries.

Rescuers from Wakatobi national park found the rotting carcass of the 9.5 metre (31ft) sperm whale on Monday near the park in Southeast Sulawesi province after receiving a report from environmentalists that villagers had surrounded the dead whale and were beginning to butcher the rotting carcass, park chief Heri Santoso said.

Santoso said researchers from wildlife conservation group WWF and the park’s conservation academy found about 5.9kg (13lbs) of plastic waste in the animal’s stomach containing 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, two flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other assorted pieces of plastic.

“Although we have not been able to deduce the cause of death, the facts that we see are truly awful,” said Dwi Suprapti, a marine species conservation coordinator at WWF Indonesia.

She said it was not possible to determine if the plastic had caused the whale’s death because of the animal’s advanced state of decay.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 260 million people, is the world’s second-largest plastic polluter after China, according to a study published in the journal Science in January. It produces 3.2 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste a year, of which 1.29m tons ends up in the ocean, the study said.

Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister of maritime affairs, said the whale’s discovery should raise public awareness about the need to reduce plastic use, and had spurred the government to take tougher measures to protect the ocean.

Read on  

Turtles trapped in plastic forced to drag lethal cargo through seas until they die, study finds

 Sarah Knapton, science editor 

12 DECEMBER 2017 • 12:01AM

Hundreds of marine turtles die every year after becoming entangled in rubbish in the oceans while others are forced to live attached to debris bigger than their own bodies, a new study has found.

A world-wide survey of 106 marine experts by the University of Exeter found that 91 per cent of the entangled turtles are found dead with many having suffered serious wounds which have amputated limbs or chocked them to death.

Others that survived are forced to drag huge mounds of disgarded rubbish or debris with them until they die, experts said. 

The throwaway plastic we use for just minutes can turn into a floating trap for marine creatures that lurks in our oceans for centuries.Greenpeace UK's head of oceans Will McCallum

The survey found that more than 1,000 turtles each year are being killed after becoming tangled up in lost fishing nets,  plastic twine and nylon fishing line, as well as six pack rings from canned drinks, plastic packaging straps, plastic balloon string, kite string, plastic packaging and discarded anchor line and seismic cable. 

Turtles were also discovered entangled in discarded plastic chairs, wooden crates, weather balloons and boat mooring line.

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Taste, not appearance, drives corals to eat plastics

Sightless corals aren't making the mistake on appearance

Date:  October 24, 2017

Source:  Duke University

Summary:

Scientists have long known that marine animals mistakenly eat plastic debris because tiny bits of floating plastic look like prey. But a new study of plastic ingestion by corals suggests there may be an additional reason for the potentially harmful behavior: The plastic simply tastes good. Chemical additives in the plastic may be acting as a feeding stimulant.

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This caterpillar could be the key to biodegradable plastic

April 25, 2017

by Chuck Bednar

A species of caterpillar that typically consumes honey and the wax from beehives may be the answer to the growing problem of plastic waste, as new research has revealed that it can easily devour a commonly used type of the material and cause it to return to a useful compound.

As Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) scientist Federica Bertocchini and her colleagues reported Monday in the journal Current Biology, the larvae of the greater wax moth (or Galleria mellonella) is capable of causing polyethylene, a type of plastic used in shopping bags and food packaging, to biodegrade into a substance that can be used in various consumer products. Bertocchini discovered that the caterpillars, which are also known as wax worms, had a taste for plastic while removing them from beehives, Sky News and the Los Angeles Times explained. As she extracted them, she placed them in plastic bags, and later found those bags full of holes.

Following that discovery, she and her colleagues observed wax worms placed on a polyethylene film and found that in as little as 40 minutes, the insects had already started boring holes through the plastic material. In fact, each worm was consuming it at a rate of roughly 2.2 holes/hour, and a team of 100 caterpillars consumed 92 milligrams of a plastic shopping bag in 12 hours.

To further test the wax moth larvae, they created a slurry of worms and placed it on polyethylene films, the Times said. Fourteen hours later, 13 percent of the plastic’s mass had degraded, and the research team discovered that the worms had left behind ethylene glycol – a compound used as a coolant, a heat transfer agent, and in the manufacturing of polyester fibers and plastic bottles.

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Whale necropsy reveals intestinal obstruction

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) - Researchers say a whale that died in the Elizabeth River had ingested a piece of plastic that perhaps prevented it from eating.

A necropsy performed Friday also found a large hematoma suggesting the 45-foot juvenile female sei whale might have been hit by a ship shortly before dying the previous day.

Sue Barco, the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center's stranding response coordinator, said the rigid piece of plastic measuring about 3 inches by 5 inches was stuck in the whale's stomach chamber and could not pass into its intestines. The whale was thin, and no food was found in its stomach.

The Virginian-Pilot reports that Barco also noticed the hematoma.

Tissue and blood samples might yield more information. The whale will be buried on Craney Island.

Source ..

Sea Turtle found that pooped plastic for a month- Disturbing story is one of many issues being discussed this week at the Fifth International Marine Debris - via Herp Digest

Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

by Bryan Nelson 3/24/13, Mother Natural Network 

As the world's experts on plastic pollution gather this week in Honolulu for the Fifth International Marine Debris Conference, a disturbing new report has been released that chronicles what decades of plastic pollution in our oceans has done to sea turtles. 

One of the more troubling stories from the report, which was issued by Seaturtle.org's Marine Turtle Newsletter (pdf), highlights an instance of a green sea turtle that had swallowed so much marine pollution that it pooped plastic for a month. 

The turtle was rescued in 2009 after marine biologists in Melbourne Beach, Fla., noticed that it seemed to be having problems digesting food. After dislodging a large piece of plastic from the animal's gastrointestinal tract, the turtle proceeded to defecate 74 foreign objects over the next month. Some of those objects included four types of latex balloons, five different types of string, nine different types of soft plastic, four different types of hard plastic, a piece of carpet-like material, and two large tar balls. 

Though this turtle was rescued, it is representative of a growing problem for sea turtles around the world, creatures that easily mistake plastics for food items like jellyfish. According to the report, about half of all surveyed sea turtles have ingested plastic. 

As single-use plastics increase in use (and get mindlessly discarded at a comparable rate), they gather in the eddying currents of the world's oceans. According to the report, well over 1 billion single-use plastic bags are given out for free every day. Though the report estimates that only about 0.2-0.3 percent of plastic production eventually ends up in the ocean, it accumulates at an alarming rate. In the 1960s, less than 1 percent of our waste was plastic, but today it makes up to 80 percent of all waste that accumulates on land, shorelines, the ocean surface or seabed. 

"Last year I counted 76 plastic bags in the ocean in just one minute while standing in the bow of our sea turtle research boat at sea in Indonesia," said Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, coauthor of the report. "The science is becoming crystal clear: sea turtles and plastic pollution don't mix well. Sea turtles have spent the past 100 million years roaming seas free of plastic pollution, and are now sadly the poster animal for impacts of our throw-away society on endangered species." 

Of course, sea turtles aren't the only marine animals imperiled by plastic. Plastic debris ensnares marine mammals like seals, and plastics are commonly discovered in the stomachs of whales, dolphins and fish. Micro-plastics have also been found to be accumulating in mollusks and crustaceans. 

In an effort to work on solutions to these problems, the Fifth International Marine Debris Conference, meeting this week through March 25, is bringing together marine debris researchers from around the world. The conference hopes to heighten global understanding and appreciation of the threats posed by marine debris, highlight recent advances in marine debris research, and provide an opportunity for the development of collaborative solutions to these problems. 

But as the conference's mission statement points out, the solutions won't come easy unless individuals around the world make basic behavioral changes to prevent plastic use. You can access advice and follow the conference events at the group's website at 5imdc.org.

Seabirds eating more plastic than ever before

New study finds that bird ingestion of plastic in U.S./Canadian North Pacific amongst highest in the world

August 2012. A new study by U.S. and Canadian scientists has found that seabirds may be eating much more plastic trash than they have in the past, and that seabirds studied off the coast of Washington State and British Columbia are ingesting plastic at rates that are "among the highest" in the world.

Northern fulmars
The report was authored by Stephanie Avery-Gomm of the University of British Columbia and five other researchers. The study was carried out in 2009 - 2010 and involved the analysis of 67 Northern Fulmars that washed up dead on the shores between Long Beach, Washington, and Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Northern Fulmars, gull-like petrels related to albatrosses and shearwaters, are particularly suitable to study when considering trends in plastic pollution because they forage almost exclusively at sea, have vast ranges and because they will forage almost anything from the surface of the water.

Worrying result
"The results are troubling. The large amount of plastic ingested by fulmars from the eastern North Pacific are approaching the high levels which have been documented previously in the historically polluted North Sea, where fulmars have been used as an indicator species of ocean health for decades. In addition, it is safe to say, based on earlier studies from the North Pacific, plastic ingestion in Northern Fulmars, and therefore plastic pollution, has increased in the North Pacific over the past forty years," said Avery-Gomm.

Plastic fills up the stomach
"The science on this issue is still being refined - there is much we don't know about the impacts of plastic ingestion on birds in general and Northern Fulmars in particular. We do know that the plastic in the stomach displaces the space for food that the birds need and that plastic can lacerate the stomach lining. Some of the birds we looked at had their gizzards completely full with plastic. We also know that plastic in the sea absorbs an astounding level of contaminants in a very short time and that these contaminants may leach out in a bird that swallows it," said Avery-Gomm.

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/plastic-seabird.html

Indonesia zoo giraffe dies with plastic in stomach

SURABAYA, Indonesia (AP) — An aging giraffe at Indonesia's largest zoo has died with a large lump of plastic found in his stomach, causing concern among zoo officials.

Anthan Warsito, the spokesman for the Surabaya Zoo in East Java's capital, says the 30-year-old giraffe — named "Kliwon" — was sick for several days before dying Thursday. Giraffes have a life expectancy of 20-30 years, and Warsito says Kliwon's death was not surprising.

But an autopsy Friday found a 44-pound (20-kilogram) lump of plastic in Kliwon's stomach. The lump had a diameter of 23 inches (60 centimeters).

Warsito said Saturday the plastic appeared to be from wrapped food thrown by zoo visitors, and from garbage that had blown into his stall. Kliwon was the zoo's only giraffe.

Warsito said other animals at the zoo would be given checkups.

http://news.yahoo.com/indonesia-zoo-giraffe-dies-plastic-stomach-045958553.html;_ylt=AhwkKFNed2xPZLqwkJzgeiKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNsMWRwNTJuBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBGUARwa2cDNzFhNGFmMjktMDM3Ny0zZDk4LTkyNTctN2VjNmI5ZGExZTI4BHBvcwM4BHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyAzA2MjE5Nzc0LTY0ZjctMTFlMS04ZmRiLTU5N2U3ZDliMzlmNg--;_ylg=X3oDMTFvdnRqYzJoBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

Researchers find plastic in more than 9% of fish in northern Pacific Ocean

The first scientific results from an ambitious voyage led by a group of graduate students from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego offer a stark view of human pollution and its infiltration of an area of the ocean that has been labeled as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”

These are two lanternfish and several bits of plastic collected during the SEAPLEX voyage [Credit: J. Leicther]

Two graduate students with the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition, or SEAPLEX, found evidence of plastic waste in more than nine percent of the stomachs of fish collected during their voyage to the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Based on their evidence, authors Peter Davison and Rebecca Asch estimate that fish in the intermediate ocean depths of the North Pacific ingest plastic at a rate of roughly 12,000- to 24,000 tons per year.


Their results were published June 27 in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

During the SEAPLEX voyage in August 2009, a team of Scripps graduate students traveled more than 1,000 miles west of California to the eastern sector of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre aboard the Scripps research vessel New Horizon. Over 20 days the students, New Horizon crew and expedition volunteers conducted comprehensive and rigorous scientific sampling at numerous locations. They collected fish specimens, water samples and marine debris at depths ranging from the sea surface to thousands of feet depth

Of the 141 fishes spanning 27 species dissected in the study, Davison and Asch found that 9.2 percent of the stomach contents of mid-water fishes contained plastic debris, primarily broken-down bits smaller than a human fingernail. The researchers say the majority of the stomach plastic pieces were so small their origin could not be determined.

“About nine percent of examined fishes contained plastic in their stomach. That is an underestimate of the true ingestion rate because a fish may regurgitate or pass a plastic item, or even die from eating it. We didn’t measure those rates, so our nine percent figure is too low by an unknown amount,” said Davison.

The authors say previous studies on fish and plastic ingestion may have included so-called “net-feeding” biases. Net feeding can lead to artificially high cases of plastic ingestion by fishes while they are confined in a net with a high concentration of plastic debris. The Scripps study’s results were designed to avoid such bias. The highest concentrations of plastic were retrieved by a surface collecting device called a “manta net,” which sampled for only 15 minutes at a time. The short sampling time minimizes the risk of net feeding by preventing large concentrations of plastic from building up, and also by reducing the amount of time that a captured fish spends in the net. In addition to the manta net, the fishes were also collected with other nets that sample deeper in the water column where there is less plastic to be ingested through net feeding.

The new study focused on the prevalence of plastic ingestion, but effects such as toxicological impacts on fish and composition of the plastic were outside of the study’s goals.

The majority of fish examined in the study were myctophids, commonly called lanternfish because of their luminescent tissue. Lanternfishes are hypothesized to use luminescence for several purposes, including counter-illumination (thwarts predators attempting to silhouette the lanternfish against sunlight), mate attraction and identification and illumination of prey. Such fish generally inhabit the 200- to 1,000-meter (650- to 3,280-foot) depth during the day and swim to the surface at night.

“These fish have an important role in the food chain because they connect plankton at the base of the food chain with higher levels. We have estimated the incidence at which plastic is entering the food chain and I think there are potential impacts, but what those impacts are will take more research,” said Asch.

Rather than a visible “patch” or “island” of trash, marine debris is highly dispersed across thousands of miles of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. The debris area cannot be mapped from air or space, so SEAPLEX researchers collected samples in 132 net tows (130 of which contained plastic) across a distance of more than 2,375 kilometers (1,700 miles) in an attempt to find the boundaries of the patch. The region, a “convergence zone” where floating debris in water congregates, is generally avoided by mariners due to its calm winds and mild currents. The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre has been understudied by scientists, leaving many open questions about marine debris in the area and its long-term effects on the marine environment.

“This study clearly emphasizes the importance of directly sampling in the environment where the impacts may be occurring,” said James Leichter, a Scripps associate professor of biological oceanography who participated in the SEAPLEX expedition but was not an author of the new paper. “We are seeing that most of our prior predictions and expectations about potential impacts have been based on speculation rather than evidence and in many cases we have in fact underestimated the magnitude of effects. SEAPLEX also clearly illustrates how relatively small amounts of funding directed for novel field sampling and work in remote places can vastly increase our knowledge and understanding of environmental problems.”

Author: Mario Aguilera
Source: University of California - San Diego
http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/07/researchers-find-plastic-in-more-than-9.html