This dead loggerhead ingested more than 100 pieces of plastic it mistook for food. Photo provided by Gumbo Limbo
By Margie Plunkett
The tiny sea turtle, the size of the palm of your hand, had died after being washed back to shore this nesting season. A necropsy at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center revealed 104 pieces of plastic in its system.
As it turns out, plastic has appeared in every washback necropsied at Gumbo Limbo this season.
“Micro-plastics have been found in these washbacks throughout the years,” said Whitney Crowder, sea turtle rehabilitation coordinator at Gumbo Limbo. “But this year, we are noticing it in more copious amounts than ever before. And this is across the board — we’ve talked to other facilities and they’re seeing the same thing.”
The rising presence of plastics in washback sea turtles “is quite alarming,” Crowder says. While there is no clear resolution to the problem, researchers are floating possibilities. And judging by the response to Gumbo Limbo’s recent Facebook post of the turtle that ingested 104 bits of plastic, there’s at least a growing awareness of the issue.
City analytics of the Oct. 1 post indicated it reached about 330 million people, equal to about $3 million worth of advertising, Crowder said.
“I feel like people are starting to pay attention, I really do. And I cannot believe that the simple post reached as many people as it did. We have been blown away,” she said.
A washback turtle is larger than a fresh hatchling, and the algae growing on it is evidence that it made it out to the sargassum in the Gulf Stream. Washbacks range in age from a few weeks to several months old. When turtles are blown back to shore, it’s a sign that something is wrong, Crowder explained. Turtles are often weakened by ingesting plastic.
Gumbo Limbo treated more than 150 washbacks this year, and more than 50 of them died, according to Crowder. Many of the deceased turtles have not been necropsied yet, but all those that have been were impacted with plastic. Gumbo Limbo also helped release about 400 more washbacks into the Gulf Stream that had been transferred from other rescue facilities.
Sea turtle nesting season runs from March 1 to Oct. 31.
Gumbo Limbo’s rehabilitation staff treats weakened washback turtles by giving them sub-cutaneous fluids while the turtles try to pass the plastic. While some turtles die from plastic impaction, the staff also finds plastic in stronger turtles expected to be released.
Micro-plastics are everywhere in the ocean — from the water’s surface to its floor. Sea turtles swimming out to and living in the Gulf Stream “are living in an area where the currents are coming together, so they’re experiencing a lifestyle of lots of floating trash and lots of broken down plastic that’s going to continue with them throughout the currents,” Crowder said.
Discarded plastic never really disappears. “When it enters the ocean, the sun and weather break it down into tinier pieces that are easier for smaller animals to start accumulating,” Crowder said.
“The animals don’t know the difference between plastic and their food — at this point, they’re just trying to survive,” she said. Normally, small turtles would eat tiny crustaceans and plant life in the sargassum, but plastics are there, too.
The question of the hour: What’s to be done? “I think this is a wake-up call from the sea turtles telling us that we must transform the role that plastic plays in our society,” Crowder said. “We have to eliminate plastic from our daily life.”
But that is far easier said than done. “You can’t go to the grocery store without plastic being everywhere you look,” she said. “The more you start changing your lifestyle, the more you really notice how reliant we are on plastic.
“I know there’s a lot of different research ideas floating around now to try to tackle this. And a lot of younger people are having great ideas as more education gets out there. Hopefully, we can come up with a solution. Giving up straws is the first step in a larger movement, I think.”
If individuals can start making lifestyle changes, they can transform communities to take on those changes, Crowder said. That, she hopes, can be expanded to a call for action to create legislative changes. “That’s how it needs to happen.”
It’s important for Gumbo Limbo to “share our knowledge and turtle stories,” she said, explaining that if the people they reach want to make even small changes, that could expand to something much larger.
“We are amazed by the outpouring of support we have received by this story, and are encouraged by how many people want to help,” Crowder said.
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