WHY DO WHALES EAT PLASTIC?
We have been bombarded lately with news that the stomachs of the sperm whales recently beached in the North Sea were full of plastic. It happens quite often. The question is why? It's important because if we understand why whales eat plastic on their way to a beaching, then we will know the answer to the centuries-old mystery of whale whales mass beach themselves.
Hint #1: Some folks think that healthy deep-diving whales can tell the difference between a nice juicy squid and plastic garbage floating on the surface by using a high-frequency echolocation and identification system similar to our ultrasonic imaging only 1,000 times better.
Healthy dolphins have even been known to use biosonar to tell the difference between pennies minted 50 years ago and the ones minted today based simply on the acoustic reflectivity of the extra copper in the older coins. Healthy dolphins can even use their biosonar to tell when a female is one month pregnant. The amazing visualization system of healthy toothed whales is so unbelievably fantastic that it can easily distinguish between plastic floating on the surface and eatable fish and squid.
Hint #2: Healthy sperm whales feed of giant squids that live a few thousand meters deep, not on the surface. There are no giant squids in the North Sea.
Hint #3: If a sperm whale suffered an accident that caused its biosonar system to fail, it would be lost and unable to dive and feed itself. These injured and lost sperm whales would swim around with the downstream flow of the current slowly starving. They would become more and more dehydrated because all their fresh water comes from the squid and fish they eat.
Hint #4: One of the major symptoms of dehydration is failing eyesight. The eyes actually shrink when they lose water. This means that when an injured whale is not feeding due to biosonar failure, it becomes super dehydrated and may even drink salt water, which causes them to become even more dehydrated.
Hint #5: About 1,500 catastrophic undersea upheavals occur annually in the backyard of whales and dolphins. These natural events release the energy equivalent of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. Undersea upheavals cause the seabed to dance about violently, generating intense waves of changing pressures that could easily rupture one of the many cranial airspaces in the massive heads of deep-diving whales.
In fact, a single seafloor upheaval could easily disable the auditory function of an entire pod of nearby sperm whales. Such an injury is called sinus barotrauma, the most common injury in human divers. Unfortunately, whale scientists are not allowed to study sinus barotrauma in diving whales because the US Navy and the oil industry, who fund 97% of all whale research worldwide, do not want the public to know anything about pressure-related injuries in the most prolific deep-diving mammals the world has ever known.
The reason is because their sonar and air guns cause the exact same sinus barotrauma as caused by natural undersea disturbances. Admit the danger to the natural events and you admit the danger to military sonar and air guns (read more). Whale scientists that tell the public about sinus barotrauma in diving whales would never get another penny of bribe money and they know it!
Hint #6: Plastic floats on the surface. It twist and moves with the waves somewhat similar to a squid. The injured, starving, dehydrated whales with poor eyesight might think the plastic is food if sinus barotrauma had disabled their biosonar system.
Whales suffering biosonar failure would swim blindly downstream in the path of least drag. Downstream currents build beaches so the lost whales traveling with the flow might even get stuck in the sand.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário