May 19, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
You might worry about your toddler chewing on a plastic toy with toxic chemicals. Some orca researchers are beginning to worry about whales ingesting a gut full of microplastics, and what that might mean for their health.
Microplastics are everywhere. Millions of tons of plastic enter our oceans annually, and much of it breaks into tiny pieces. Microplastics are plastic particles five millimeters (about two-tenths of an inch) or smaller. They represent 92 percent of plastic pieces polluting the oceans’ surface waters. Researchers have found microplastics in all major seas and oceans. They’ve also found them in the intestinal tracts of organisms at all levels of the ocean food chain, from zooplankton to fish to marine mammals.
Some scientists are concerned that microplastics and their toxic effects are bioaccumulating in killer whales, the oceans’ top predators. Endangered Southern Resident killer whales spend much of their summers in Puget Sound and the Salish Sea. Chemical contamination from pollution, particularly in young whales, is one of three primary threats to their population. Could microplastics be part of the problem?
A team of scientists with NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center (Center) and the University of Washington have started an investigation. They are looking at what microplastics the Southern Residents are ingesting, at what scale, and whether the whales are being exposed to toxic chemicals associated with microplastics.