Darrell Blatchley and a dead whale with 40kg of plastic in its stomach

In this episode, Jeremy and Brad are joined by Darrell Blatchley, who is a Marine Biologist and Curator of the D’ Bone Collector Museum in Davao City in the Philippines.  

Last Saturday morning, a starving whale has found in waters off the coast the Philippines. The whale died shortly after. Darrell and his team rushed to recover the whale to investigate the cause of death. Like a very large number of marine animals, the whale had died of starvation and dehydration as a result of plastic ingestion. Inside the 4.7m long juvenile whale, Darrell found 40 kilograms of plastic, including 16 rice sacks, four banana plantation bags and many grocery and general plastic bags.  In this podcast episode, we discuss Darrell’s investigation of the whale and the 61 other necropsies he has undertaken on whales and dolphins over the last 10 years. We also discuss the sources of plastic pollution in the Philippines and potential solutions.  

References:

• Darrell’s museum: https://www.facebook.com/D-Bone-Collector-Museum-Inc-216407245052538/
• News articles about the whale’s death: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/18/704471596/stomach-of-dead-whale-contained-nothing-but-plastic; https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-19/whale-dies-after-eating-plastic-bags/10917282; https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/whale-philippines-dies-88-pounds-plastic-stomach-n984421; https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/dead-whale-plastic-phillipines_n_5c8f9b2ee4b0d7f6b0f6085d; https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/08/09/18/plastic-food-wrappers-found-inside-dead-whale-shark-in-davao

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