INQUIRER – Marine biologists were deeply saddened upon discovering 29 lifeless sperm whales around the shore of North Sea Island in Germany last week, and their grief heightened further after finding out what were inside the animals’ stomachs.

According to a press release from Wadden Sea National Park in Schleswig-Holstein, most of the whales had stomachs full of plastic debris—including a 13-meter-long fishing net, a 70-centimeter piece of plastic from a car and other pieces of plastic litter.

The enormous marine creatures are believed to have mistakenly identified the items as food, such as squid, which is their main staple. Worse, the travesty is largely a result of humanity’s shocking disregard for marine life, which has resulted in an overabundance of plastics in the oceans.

I consider myself a nature guy. I appreciate the great outdoors. I hate to hear about the death of any of God’s beautiful creatures. This whale incident, however, is a REALLY bad look for mammals. Mammals are supposed to be at the top of the animal kingdom, and when you’re at the top, it comes with some very serious responsibilities. Among those very important responsibilities include not ingesting garbage and dying on a German beach. I mean seriously, we are supposed to be the best of the best when it comes to animals, and here go a bunch of sperm whales eating car parts and dying. I don’t want to sound harsh here, but you don’t see dolphins eating garbage. Sure, they get caught in fishing nets and the occasional plastic rings from a 6 pack, but they don’t go around eating trash until they die. That kind of idiocy is reserved for the invertebrates of the world, not warm blooded, live birth giving, milk-teat having mammals like you and I. If the whales keep this shit up, we might just have to demote them back to being fish.