After a young sperm whale washed up dead in Spain earlier this month, it raised a few pertinent questions. Among those, what caused the whale to die in the first place?

Image Credit: EspaciosNaturalesMur/Twitter

Animal experts with ties to the El Valle Wildlife Rescue Center wanted to learn more, so they did the only reasonable thing that came to mind; they conducted an autopsy. The results from the procedure exposed something that no one ever expected.

As it would seem, the deceased whale’s digestive system contained a whopping 64 pounds’ worth of garbage. Among the bits of trash were plastic bags, fishing nets, ropes, and even a drum.

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One can only assume the hunk of trash became so massive that the whale couldn’t expel it from its body. It irritated and inflamed the intestinal lining, causing a considerable amount of inflammation that the experts say caused the creature’s early demise.

And to make matters worse, the whale must have endured a great deal of discomfort and suffering throughout the whole ordeal.

It wasn’t long after the autopsy that pictures of the deceased whale and its digestive system contents made it to the internet. They depict the horrors of a severely-underweight sperm whale and a crinkled and colorful menagerie of plastics and junk that no animal should ever have inside of its body.

Image Credit: EspaciosNaturalesMur/Twitter

The marine animal’s unusually-skinny appearance can only be attributed to its inability to eat anything because of the digestive system blockage.

This isn’t the first whale to wash up with a stomach full of trash, and it won’t be the last. Wildlife experts warn that it will only get worse if we don’t do anything to clean up our oceans. Today, too many forms of innocent wildlife are devouring things that inadvertently end up where they don’t belong, and it negatively impacts Earth’s delicate ecosystem.

Source: Washington Post