Wildlife

'Litter Ball' Found Inside a Dead Sperm Whale

When workers with a whale strandings agency in Scotland performed a necropsy on a recently beached sperm whale, they found a gruesome surprise: The animal had died with around 220 lbs. (100 kilograms) of trash in its stomach. The young male sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) washed ashore on Nov. 28 at Luskentyre beach in Scotland's Outer Hebrides islands. It died shortly thereafter.

Fishing nets, rope bundles, tubes and an assortment of plastic garbage formed a compact mass — a so-called litter ball — inside the 20-ton whale, "and some of it it looked like it had been there for some time.

While the amount of garbage inside the whale was "horrific," the animal appeared to be in good health and wasn't malnourished, according to the post. It's likely that the trash ball interfered with digestion, but SMASS experts didn't find any signs that the ingested debris blocked the whale's intestines.

Australia’s Extinct Species

It's well established that unsustainable human activity is damaging the health of the planet. The way we use Earth threatens our future and that of many animals and plants. Species extinction is an inevitable end point.

It's important that the loss of Australian nature be quantified accurately. To date, putting an exact figure on the number of extinct species has been challenging. But in the most comprehensive assessment of its kind, research has confirmed that 100 endemic Australian species living in 1788, such as the Tasman tiger, are now validly listed as extinct.