Turtles
Turtles: As one of turtles main food sources is jelly fish they search the sea for it. A plastic bag is very easily mistaken for jellyfish. The turtles mistake the plastic bag for a turtle. Even though plastic bags are the most commonly eaten there is other plastics and garbage found in the turtle's stomachs. Such as soft tissue plastic and styrofoam. When this plastic is ingested it blocks the gut. |
Krill & Plankton
Krill and Plankton: As krill and plankton live quite close up to the surface they consume a lot of microplastics. These tiny little pieces of plastic and easily consumed by these small sea animals. These animals have a massive massive effect on the eci system if they are wiped because a lot of bigger animals hunt and eat them. |
Sea Birds
Birds : 100,000s sea birds die every year because they are mistaking plastic for food and ingesting it. When the sea birds eat this plastic it fills their stomachs which causes them to eat less food. This causes them to starve and eventually die. 98% of Laysan Albatross chicks die because of eating plastic. They’re parents give them plastic that they mistook for food. As the amount of plastic has risen by 40 times this rises the amount of seabird deaths. |
Seals
Seals: Seals get easily entangled in plastic and fishing gear and ingest plastic. Endangered species such as Hawaiian Monk Seal and Steller Sea lions are getting caught up in these nets or mistaking the plastic for food. They ingest the plastic and eventually die or if the seals get stuck in nets they have no access to food so die of starvation. This is decreasing the population of seals. This slows the recovery process of this seal species. |
Eco System & Effects
Animals are getting caught in nets, ropes, plastic beverage rings that cause them to be captured and stuck and not able to move freely. Animals also eat the trash and and it gets stuck inside them. Around 100,000 sea mammals and close to 1 million fish die from this each year. This affects the food chain because if one sea animal is affected and decreased in population then tie will create a chain effect and lots of others will be affected because they have less access to food.