Study: Whales Ingest Up to 44 Kilograms of Plastic Daily

(Patria) - The largest creatures on the planet swallow nearly ten million pieces of microplastic every day.

These are the results of a study by scientists from Stanford University. The size of microplastics varies from 0.23 to 4 mg per piece. This means that whales ingest up to nearly 44 kilograms of plastic daily.

They studied what blue, humpback, and fin whales eat and discovered that they all primarily feed at depths of 50 to 250 meters below the surface.

These are the depths where the highest concentration of microplastics is found in the open ocean.

Humpback whales ingest about 200,000 pieces of microplastic daily, while fin whales, which feed on both krill and fish, ingest between three and ten million pieces of microplastic per day.

The blue whale feeds exclusively on small planktonic shrimp, which studies have shown are full of microplastics, reports Green.

These are concerning data that reveal whales may not be getting the necessary nutrients for their development. Namely, they do not ingest plastic by swallowing seawater, but directly from their food.

The conducted study is based on data collected over more than a decade.

The researchers attempted to answer a seemingly simple question - how much does an animal the size of an 18-wheel vehicle eat, why are they so large, and at what rate does their heart beat.

To find answers to these questions, they even used drones attached to the backs of whales to collect data on their movements.