Plastic Pollution and Sea Turtles outlived dinosaurs
Sea turtles are known for their resilience and natal homing. Next time you come across a sea turtle, please know that you just saw an animal that outlived dinosaurs. They are known too for their instinctive abilities and nesting process. However, the problem starts when plastic bags find their resting place in our beloved oceans due to plastic pollution.
Unfortunately, plastic bags produce an odor that is similar to the smell of food and which looks like a jellyfish. For instance, Dr. Joseph Pfaller from Florida University has termed these pollutants as “Olfactory Trap” for endangered marine animals such as whales and sea turtles. Basically, he claims that sea turtles are attracted to the smell of these plastics products, and mistakenly eat them.
Scientific Evidence
Wilcox et al, 2018 conclude in their study that once an animal has 14 pieces of plastic in its gut, the mortality rate reaches 50%. Therefore, they found out a significant impact of plastic ingestion on the marine animal population.
Similarly, the Current Biology experiment with 15 young loggerhead sea turtles proved that animals reacted to water tanks with artificially created conditioned plastics odor as they did to the food.
Gonzalez Carman and his colleagues published in 2014 that 90% of young green turtles and 80% of juvenile loggerheads turtles had ingested plastic in South West Atlantic and Western Mediterranean, respectively. The trend of plastic ingestion due to ocean pollution is frequent in the juvenile and pelagic sea turtle stages.
Can we save them?
How can we make sure that this beautiful animal doesn’t vanish from this earth way earlier than it should?
Firstly, we have to think about buying reusable bottles instead of plastic ones. However, we must also ensure that the amount of waste we produce is disposed of as carefully as possible.
Moreover, we need to replace plastic bags that ultimately get tangled in the gut of sea animals with eco-friendly bags. The easiest way of doing it is by keeping some in the boot of our cars. So, whenever we go shopping, we don’t buy recyclable products to carry them home in big plastic bags. Otherwise, it would be useless. Indeed, we can’t try to help the environment in one way, but harm it on the other.
Among all the marine animals, sea turtles have interestingly engrained their existence in our hearts and continue to charm us across the globe. Let’s make a promise to ourselves to do as much as we can, so this beautiful creature stays around with us.
Success is a journey, not a destination.
Ben Sweetland
