A green baby sea turtle found on a Sydney beach in Australia pooped plastic for six days after his rescue. “Unfortunately, the debris within the ocean does not just stick to any particular size animal or any specific species of animal,” said Sarah Male, veterinary nurse at Taronga Zoo’s Wildlife Hospital, where the hatchling is being treated.
The turtle weighed 127 grams when he was found at Tamarama Beach in Bondi. “We’ve had hatchlings that fit into the palm of your hand that have had plastic ingestion, and we’ve also had 100-kilo turtles that have also been found with lots of plastic bags and fishing line and stuff like that inside their internal gut system,” Male said.
Taronga Zoo’s Wildlife Hospital treats up to 80 marine turtles a year. “So the majority of the injuries that we see is obviously ingestion of plastics, fishing line, things like that. A lot of the other stuff we see are boat strikes,” Male told news agency Reuters.