HONOLULU—A whale that washed ashore in Hawaii over the weekend likely died in part because it ate large volumes of fishing traps, fishing nets, plastic bags, and other marine debris, scientists said Thursday, highlighting the threat to wildlife from the millions of tons of plastic that ends up in oceans every year.
The body of the 56-foot long, 120,000-pound animal was first noticed on a reef off Kauai on Friday. High tide brought it ashore on Saturday.
An excavator makes numerous attempts to free a whale from the shoreline and move it onto Lydgate Beach in Kauai County, Hawaii, on Jan. 28, 2023. (Daniel Dennison/Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources via AP)
Kristi West, the director of the University of Hawaii’s Health and Stranding Lab, said there were enough foreign objects in the opening of the whale’s intestinal tract to block food….