INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A whale that washed up in the southern Philippines died after swallowing 40kg of plastic bags.Marine biologist Darrell Blatchley was called
to recover the 4.7m-long (15.4ft) mammal after it was reported to be trapped off the coast of Mabini on Saturday.The Cuvier's beaked whale
had been vomiting up blood and showed signs of starvation and dehydration.Image:Darrell Blatchley holds up a sheet of plastic found in the
animal's stomachMr Blatchley, who is also president of the D'Bone Collector Museum in Davao, told Sky News: "We returned the animal to the
museum's facility and began the autopsy."Upon reaching the stomach I knew this whale had died due to plastic ingestion."I was not prepared
for the amount of plastic I saw."The animal had roughly 40kg of rice sacks, grocery bags, banana plantation bags and general plastic bags in
it stomach."There were 16 rice sacks in total."It was so bad the plastic was beginning to calcify."The Philippine people are a proud people,
but sadly they are not in relation to taking care of the environment."The Philippines needs to change from the children up or there will be
nothing left."Image:The animal showed signs of dehydration and starvationImages posted on Facebook show the whale's corpse being towed to
shore, then sheets of plastic being lifted out of its stomach.Mr Blatchley and other marine biologists at his museum have recovered 61
whales and dolphins in the last 10 years, but said that their latest discovery was "the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale".The
museum called on the Philippines government to take action against people dumping plastic into the sea.A whale was found dead in southern
Thailand in June after it had swallowed more than 80 plastic bags.
