Whales and plastics
There are over 90 species of cetaceans, whales, dolphins, and porpoises.
Types of whales
There are only two types of whales: toothed and baleen. Toothed whales, as the name suggests, have teeth, which are used to hunt and eat squid, fish, and seals.
Migration
Humpback whales migrate around 5000km on average, one of the longest migratory journeys of any mammal on Earth.
Types of whales
Baleen whales are larger than toothed whales, for the most part. They include blue whales, humpbacks, right whales, bowhead whales, and others.
Plastic consumption
Whales consume plastic bags and nets that they mistake for jellyfish, in the Philippines 61 whales that died in the Davao Gulf. Of those, estimates are that plastics were the cause of death for about 45 of them.
Threats to whales
Though the stark population declines from hunting have largely stopped, several whale species are threatened or endangered—including the blue whale, right whale, and fin whale—by a combination of fishing net entanglements, being struck by ships and plastic consumption.
Plastic is killing them
According to Smass figures reports of whale and dolphin strandings in Scotland are on the increase.
There were 204 reports in 2009, rising to more than 930 in 2018.