June 4, 2018 — A male pilot whale struggled for five days to stay alive in Thailand near the Malaysian border after rescuers found it with 17 pounds of plastic bags in its stomach, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, but it ultimately succumbed to its illnesses.
The whale died on Friday, the Post wrote, and an autopsy discovered what Thailand’s Department of Marine and Coastal Resources said were 80 plastic bags lodged in its stomach.
It’s far from the first time whales have turned up sick or dead from ingesting trash. Per the Post, experts say that the whale likely believed the bags were food:
Thai officials said they believe the whale mistook the floating plastic for food. Pilot whales primarily eat squid but are also known to hunt octopus, cuttlefish and small fish when squid prove elusive, the American Cetacean Society said.
Kasetsart University marine biologist and lecturer Thon Thamrongnawasawat told Agence France-Presse that the massive glob of plastic in the whale’s stomach probably led to it starving to death:
Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine biologist and lecturer at Kasetsart University, said the bags had made it impossible for the whale to eat any nutritional food.
“If you have 80 plastic bags in your stomach, you die,” he said.