The heartbreaking moment a turtle choked on a piece of plastic was captured by divers off the coast of Hawaii, highlighting the scale of pollution in our oceans.
A group of 100 individuals strapped with scuba gear spent Earth Day clearing pollution off the seafloor in Oahu and watched in horror as the sea animal mistook the waste for a jellyfish.
The video shows the green sea turtle swimming toward the divers, opening its mouth and coughing up a thin sheet of plastic – along with plastic bottles, cans and other trash littering the ocean floor.
The distressing footage mirrored an incident in 2015 when researchers discovered a one-inch plastic straw lodged in a turtles nose in Costa Rican waters, which sparked a movement to ban the waste.
The video shows the green sea turtle swimming toward the divers, opening its mouth and coughing up a thin sheet of plastic – along with plastic bottles, cans and other trash littering the ocean floor
Diver Brittany Ziegler (pictured), 34, who shot the video, said: ‘We were on Oahu for a weekend pledge against plastics so it was ironic that we captured that awful footage of the turtle on that day
A group of 100 individuals strapped with scuba gear spent Earth Day clearing pollution off the seafloor in Oahu
Diver Brittany Ziegler, 34, who shot the video, said: ‘We were on Oahu for a weekend pledge against plastics so it was ironic that we captured that awful footage of the turtle on that day.
Ziegler told SWSM: ‘Over 100 people showed up and we cleared up a few thousand pounds worth of plastic out of the ocean.
‘Whilst we were live streaming the clean up to thousands of people on my TikTok, this beautiful green sea turtle slowly approached us and spat this plastic out.
‘I just thought you poor baby, we don’t know how much plastic she could’ve had in her stomach either.
‘She just swam right up to us, looked in the camera and spat the plastic right out. It was like she was trying to tell us something.
‘They love to eat jellyfish and they just can’t tell the difference.’
The video has also revived memories of a turtle found in Costa Rica in 2015 by researchers who pulled a one-inch plastic straw out of the creature’s nose
The video echoed another in 2015 that was captured by researchers off the coast of Costa Rica.
Marine biologist Christine Figgener and her team came across a sea turtle in the waters, noticing something was lodged in its nose.
They initially believed it was a parasitic worm, but a closer look revealed it was a plastic straw.
The video showed the team slowly pulling the trash out of the turtle’s nostril, as blood began to flow down its face.
Using a pair of pliers, researches slowly extracted the straw while the turtle appeared to be in excruciating pain throughout the entire ordeal.
The video maker then addressed the camera and said: ‘This is the reason we do not need plastic straws.’
A staggering 30 per cent of turtles and 71 per cent of seabirds have been with plastic material located in their stomachs. It’s also estimated that one million seabirds and 100,000 other types of marine animals die from ingesting plastic on an annual basis.
Following the Costa Rica incident, many US states and international corporations moved to ban plastic straws.
This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk
