Today we saw something disturbing…an unbelievable amount of plastic in the ocean. It’s the rainy season in Panama, and the rivers are swollen with rain and flushing everything alongside out into the ocean. Here are pictures of a line of natural debris, branches and other organic detritus. Interspersed amongst all the organic matter is an incredible amount of plastic (the pictures do not do it justice). We saw many many bottles, shoes, a laundry basket, all kinds of tubs and containers; we even saw the plastic leg of a doll. This line of debris stretched on as far as we could see.
We saw two humpback whales swimming amongst all this plastic. Although the humpback whales we are seeing off Panama are not here to feed, and may not necessarily be directly affected by this garbage while they are here, many species will be affected, and it is an indicator of how we humans treat the oceans as our garbage dump. To learn more about plastic in the ocean go to:
http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/ocean-trash-plaguing-our-sea
