Led by Dr Kathy Townsend, Manager of Research and Education at UQ's Moreton Bay Research Station, the group found that marine rubbish was the leading cause of sea turtle deaths in 2007.
“In 2007, we attended to 30 marine turtle strandings,” Dr Townsend said.
“Of these, 23 percent were caused by the ingestion of marine rubbish.
“This is almost double the number for 2006 in which marine rubbish accounted for 12 percent of the strandings.”
Dr Townsend said, regardless of its size, marine rubbish posed a serious threat to sea turtles.
“A green turtle hatchling, six centimetres in length, washed up on North Stradbroke and died due to gut perforation through the ingestion of plastic marine rubbish,” she said.
“Its gut contained plastic bags, soft and hard plastic, and fishing line. The piece that killed the baby turtle was only about half the size of a fingernail.
“Another turtle, a sub-adult, died with a gut full of plastic bags, the largest of which was over 30 centimetres long.”
Sea turtles are particularly susceptible to the effects of marine rubbish due to the internal structure of their throats and die a slow and painful death.
“Sea turtles have downward facing spines in their throats which literally prevent them from regurgitating,” Dr Townsend said.
“The plastic gets trapped in the gut, preventing food from going down and the spines prevent it from coming back up.
“The trapped food decomposes, leaking gases into the body cavity and causing the animal to float.
“The turtle then slowly starves to death or succumbs to other secondary life threatening conditions such as boat strike.”
Boat strikes have traditionally been the greatest cause of marine turtle strandings but, according to the group's findings, accounted for only 17 percent in 2007.
“Plastic bags do kill and the recent federal initiative of a plastic bag levee is a step in the right direction towards helping address this problem,” Dr Townsend said.
Source: University of Queensland
Related stories:
Light sticks may lure turtles to fishing lines
Thousands of loggerhead turtles die every year when they get tangled or hooked in commercial fishing longlines meant for tuna or swordfish. New research suggests a possible reason why turtles swim into the lines. The glowing light sticks that lure fish to longlines also attract turtles, according to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study.
Bangladesh releases 25,000 protected turtles
Bangladeshi bio-marine experts have released 25,000 endangered baby turtles into the sea in the past two months as part of a state-run captivity breeding programme, an environmental official said Friday.
NASA to Attempt Historic Solar Sail Deployment
"Hold your hands out to the sun. What do you feel? Heat, of course. But there's pressure as well – though you've never noticed it, because it's so tiny. Over the area of your hands, it only comes to about a millionth of an ounce. But out in space, even a pressure as small as that can be important – for it's acting all the time, hour after hour, day after day. Unlike rocket fuel, it's free and unlimited. If we want to, we can use it; we can build sails to catch the radiation blowing from the sun."1
Research uncovers the hidden world of turtles
The frog may be the environmental indicator of the land, but University of Queensland researchers reckon when it comes to the sea, we should look to the turtle.
Saltwater sleuths: Seeking clues to help determine the ages of fish and shellfish populations
Fishery biologist Sandy Sutherland looks through the lens of the microscope at tiny sections of fish earbones, known as otoliths, each showing annual bands of growth. She carefully counts the bands to determine the age of the fish, then moves on to the next sample. Known as an age reader, Sutherland is one of a small team at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) whose aging work is critical to stock assessments needed to manage the nation’s fishery resources in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean.
Researchers engineer new polymers to change their stiffness, strength when exposed to liquids
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the departments of macromolecular science and engineering and biomedical engineering at the Case School of Engineering and the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center has published ground-breaking work on a new type of polymer that displays chemoresponsive mechanic adaptability -- meaning the polymer can change from hard to soft plastic and vice versa in seconds when exposed to liquid -- in the March 7, 2008, issue of
Science.
Turtle studies suggest health risks from environmental contaminants
The same chemicals that keep food from sticking to our frying pans and stains from setting in our carpets are damaging the livers and impairing the immune systems of loggerhead turtles—an environmental health impact that also may signal a danger for humans.
Sea otter study reveals striking variability in diets and feeding strategies
Ecologists have long observed that when food becomes scarce, animal populations exploit a wider range of food sources. So scientists studying southern sea otters at different sites in California's coastal waters were not surprised to find that the dietary diversity of the population is higher where food is limited. But this diversity was not reflected in the diets of individual sea otters, which instead showed dietary specialization in response to limited food.
