16 kg of plastics were found in the belly of a beaked whale, which washed up on a beach in the Landes on Saturday.

According to the autopsy, the mammal, already sick and unable to hunt, remained on the surface of the water and ingested what passed under its nose.

Which shows how much plastic is in the ocean.

A magma of packets of crisps and pasta, bags and shopping bags: the autopsy of a beaked whale washed up on the Landes coast on Saturday revealed 16 kg of plastic waste in the whale's belly, the cetacean said on Monday. Pelagis observatory, responsible for the national monitoring of marine mammals.

The whale was suffering from a parasitic disease

This 5.15-meter-long toothed cetacean specimen, in reality closer to a large dolphin, was found on Saturday on the beach of Messanges, in a state of putrefaction, by passers-by then dissected by two members of the national stranding network of the Pelagis observatory, headquartered in La Rochelle.

For Willy Dabin, in charge of running the national stranding network, the presence of this waste is explained by the state of health of the female whale, suffering from a parasitic disease, which weakened it and prevented it from continuing. to eat properly.

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While the beaked whale is usually an "active hunter" which dives to 1,000 meters deep to feed, especially on squid, this female "must have stayed on the surface and swallowed what passed under her nose. ", he adds.

"Finally with this disease, she went from being an active hunter to that of a turtle that drifts and swallows plastics, taking them for jellyfish," he explains.

The absorption of pieces of plastic, a fact still rare in mammals

According to the observatory, "this mass of plastic probably accelerated the death of the cetacean", estimated at at least ten days.

"This waste lines the walls of the stomach and intestines, which can cause blockages and prevent nutrients from entering the blood."

For Willy Dabin, the absorption of plastic pieces "shows the significant availability of matter in the oceans", but it remains a "rare" fact in marine mammals.

That is 2 to 3% of the 2,000 specimens of seals, whales and dolphins stranded each year on the metropolitan and overseas coasts.

For the observatory, the "problem" is more about the phenomenon of "bioaccumulation" which also affects marine mammals, when they eat fish that have themselves ingested plastic.

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