One week is all it takes for a piece of plastic floating in the ocean to begin to smell like turtle food.
One week is all it takes for a piece of plastic floating in the ocean to begin to smell like turtle food.
New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows that plastics floating in the ocean build a coating of algae and microorganisms that smells edible to turtles. The study, “Odors from marine plastic debris elicit foraging behavior in sea turtles,” was published March 9 in the journal Current Biology. The Carolina team worked on the study with lead author Joe Pfaller from the Caretta Research Project in Savannah, Georgia.
“This finding is important because it’s the first demonstration that the odor of ocean plastics causes animals to eat them,” said Kenneth J. Lohmann, Charles P. Postelle Jr. Distinguished Professor of Biology at Carolina. “It’s common to find loggerhead turtles with their digestive systems fully or partially blocked because they’ve eaten plastic materials. There also are increasing reports of sea turtles that have become ill and stranded on the beach due to their ingestion of plastic.”
The most important thing people can do to help is to prevent plastics from going into the ocean in the first place. Some practical steps include recycling, properly disposing of trash and recyclables after a trip to the beach or after a boat trip, using reusable or paper shopping bags, and buying larger containers of drinks instead of numerous small drink containers held together with plastic rings.
Read more at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Photo credit: tpsdave via Pixabay
