Marine biologists on Wednesday performed an autopsy on a short-finned pilot whale that had died on Tuesday and found the cetacean’s stomach filled with plastic bags.
The whale was found stranded in Taichung’s Wuci District (梧棲) on Friday last week and was sheltered by National Cheng Kung University’s Marine Biology and Cetacean Research Center.
The creature died even though marine biologists transferred it to a pool and tried to save its life for five days.
Scientists at the institute said that they were shocked when they found large quantities of plastic bags and cellophane snack-wrappers in the whale’s stomach, adding that some of the bags were even neatly folded when retrieved.
“It was as if it had swallowed a bagful of household waste. It is really saddening,” one scientist said.
Hopefully, this incident raises people’s awareness of oceanic pollution and inspires them to cultivate a sustainable environment and show more respect to life, the institute said.
Research center director Wang Chien-ping (王建平) said the whale was a calf — weighing just over 100kg — and had only just stopped feeding on its mother’s milk.
Perhaps due to an inability to differentiate between food and trash, it ate whatever it found floating in the ocean, which left its stomach bulging with garbage, he said.
“It shows that the marine environment in the nation’s neighboring waters is appalling, and cetaceans are short of food,” Wang said.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
Prosecutors today declined to say who was questioned regarding alleged forgery on petitions to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, after Chinese-language media earlier reported that members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Youth League were brought in for questioning. The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau confirmed that two people had been questioned, but did not disclose any further information about the ongoing investigation. KMT Youth League members Lee Hsiao-liang (李孝亮) and Liu Szu-yin (劉思吟) — who are leading the effort to recall DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) — both posted on Facebook saying: “I
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 today amid outcry over his decision to wear a Nazi armband to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case last night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and covering the book with his coat. Lee said today that this is a serious
A mountain blaze that broke out yesterday morning in Yangmingshan National Park was put out after five hours, following multi agency efforts involving dozens of fire trucks and helicopter water drops. The fire might have been sparked by an air quality sensor operated by the National Center for High-Performance Computing, one of the national-level laboratories under the National Applied Research Laboratories, Yangmingshan National Park Headquarters said. The Taipei City Fire Department said the fire, which broke out at about 11am yesterday near the mountainous Xiaoyoukeng (小油坑) Recreation Area was extinguished at 4:32pm. It had initially dispatched 72 personnel in four command vehicles, 16
RSS