After attempting to rescue a pilot whale they had spotted struggling to swim in a canal in Thailand, a veterinary team attempted to treat the mammal. The whale ended up regurgitating multiple plastic bags before it eventually dies on June 1.
In total, the team found over 80 plastic bags weighing in at over 17 pounds inside the whale’s stomach during a necropsy. There was so much plastic inside the whale that it starved because the bags made it impossible to eat.
“It’s a huge problem,” says Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine biologist and lecturer at Kasetsart University. “We use a lot of plastic.”
