Blue whales would be absorbing up to 10 million pieces of microplastics every day, according to a study published on Tuesday (1st). The work points out the impact of a large volume of pollution on these marine mammals.
Fragments of plastic have been found at the bottom of the oceans and in the highest mountains, and even in human organs and blood.
To calculate how much microplastics whales ingest, the researchers did a modeling study, published in the journal Nature Communications.
Scientists tagged 191 blue, common and humpback whales that live off the coast of California, United States, to track their movements.
“It’s like an Apple Watch [relógio inteligente]on the back of the whale,” explained Shirel Kahane-Rapport, a researcher at California State University, Fullerton, and lead author of the study.
According to the data collected, the whales feed mainly at a depth between 50 and 250 meters, precisely where “the highest concentration of microplastics in the water column is found”, the expert told AFP.
The researchers calculated how many daily bites the whales take and their size; and also what they filter, and created three scenarios. In the most likely scenario, blue whales would ingest up to 10 million pieces of microplastic a day.
While one might imagine that whales suck up large amounts of microplastics as they make their way across the ocean, the researchers found that this is not the case.
In fact, 99% of microplastics enter whale bodies because they were already inside their prey.
“This worries us,” Shirel Kahane-Rapport said, as humans also eat these prey.
“We also eat anchovies and sardines,” he pointed out, adding that “krill [um pequeno crustáceo parecido com um camarão] is the basis of the food web”, the marine food chain.
Previous studies have shown that when a krill is in a tank where there are microplastics, it “eats” them, she said.
Now that scientists have estimated how much microplastics the whales absorb, they want to determine the extent of the damage. “The dose makes the poison,” said Shirel Kahane-Rapport.
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