Dolphin dies in El Nido after eating garbage bag

PALAWAN, Philippines – A juvenile Rough-Toothed Dolphin (Steno bredanensis) beached in El Nido died Friday, June 28, after eating a plastic garbage bag, yet another case reminding humans how plastics are harming marine life. 

The dolphin, named Wally, was seen in Nacpan Beach early morning Thursday, June 27. In a Facebook post of El Nido Resorts-Be Green, he was described as “weak and emaciated, looking like he had not eaten for weeks.”

“After several attempts at feeding and subsequent release, he succumbed to his illness,” the post continued.

Post-mortem examination revealed that the dolphin got a plastic garbage bag stuck in its stomach. “It (plastic garbage bag) was so tightly-packed that the bones from the fish it ate after was not even able to pass through,” the post detailed. 

El Nido Resorts-Be Green urged the public to ditch single-use plastics to save marine animals.

(WATCH: Plastic wasteland: Asia’s ocean pollution crisis)

“We cannot stress enough how much we need to do away with plastics. More and more animals are popping up sick or worse, dead from plastic pollution. It is happening so much that it has now become the rule, rather than the exception,” said the post.

“We can only truly start cleaning up the earth once we eliminate the use of single-use plastics,” read its post. – Rappler.com

Here are more stories about plastic pollution:

• Sea turtle found dead in Negros Occidental
• Humans consume ‘tens of thousands’ of plastic pieces each year
• LOOK: Albay supermarket uses banana leaves, abaca instead of plastic
• Single-use plastics, still the environment’s number 1 enemy
• Dead whale in Compostela Valley had 40 kilograms of plastic in stomach
• LOOK: Crab trapped in #PlasticMonster goes viral