These are the vaquitas, a species of the dolphin family that exists only in the Gulf of California. They are the rarest marine mammals to be found in nature. Not only because they are shy, but mainly because they are on the verge of extinction.
It is believed that fewer than 12 individuals remain in the wild. Several measures have already been taken by NGOs, preservation institutes and the Mexican and US governments. None of this has prevented the population from falling dramatically in recent years, to the point of being declared extinct in the coming months.
The main cause of the death of the Vaquitas is predatory fishing, which aims not at them, but another species of fish called totoaba also typical of the region and also threatened with extinction. The increasing search for the totoaba bladder, which is highly valued in the Chinese market, is considered as the major cause of the risk of extinction of these two species. This is a dramatic example of how marine life is threatened by human activity.
And while predatory fishing is by itself a huge threat, studies show that there is another great risk that we are bringing to the oceans, a much quieter and almost invisible one Millions of pieces of plastic the size of these grains of sand. Much of this plastic comes from fishing nets that hunt the totoabas and kill the vaquitas. When these nets are abandoned at sea, they continue to kill thousands of animals that wrap around them.
And then they dissolve and turn into microplastic, joining with more than 8 million tons of plastic every year we throw in the oceans. And there is an announced tragedy. The preliminary research on plastic that we really noticed were the big plastic.
The one that you can see with your naked eye, but then we started to look in our lab at smaller plastics that was harder to see. And we counted over 34 thousand pieces of plastic. Over 90% of them were smaller than one square centimeter.
I then went back for my research and looked at even smaller plastics than that. About a million times more plastic that we had been counting. So, it’s microscopic, it’s actually the most abundant plastic, it’s the really really tiny stuff.
This is the ORV Alguita, Captain Charles Moore's boat. This guy is the guy who first identified a high concentration of plastic in the North Pacific Ocean. And he's the guy who inspired me to create the Menos 1 Lixo.
In fact, the Movement Menos 1 Lixo was created so that less plastic arrived in the ocean and did not contribute to this great concentration. Well, the area that we call the North Pacific Gyre is as remote as you can get from human civilization anywhere on Earth. It’s halfway between Hawaii and the mainland of California.
So when I was returning from Honolulu in 1997 kinda an unique year, because it was the largest El Niño ever recorded in the Pacific It flattened the water, virtually from Hawaii to the mainland. It was completely calm. So It gave all that plastic that was there a chance to float to the surface.
Gyre is a natural phenomenon. It’s just a huge spinning current system that’s comprised of the rotation of the Earth with winds and currents. So it essentially creates a huge whirlpool in the ocean, where plastic from land get trapped and and concentrated.
We hit the ground running in 2010 with an expedition across the South Atlantic, the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the eastern half of the North Atlantic and then returned to the North Pacific. And we found that this is truly a global issue. Recently, other research expeditions by Captain Moore's team have identified a second large concentration of plastic this time in the South Pacific, between the equatorial line and the coast of Chile.
Which means, the plastic is really everywhere. When we did our trip across the South Atlantic Gyre, from Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town in South Africa and then Namibia back to Uruguay. What we found is pretty much consistent with what we find in other gyres.
Sample, after sample, after sample, after sample, of an entire month that looks like a handful of fragments. Broken down fragments of plastics, mixed with marine life, with plankton, and krill and portuguese man'o war. When we pulled up our net, and looked at the contents after sampling out there, we’ve determined six kilos of plastic for every kilo of plankton in the net.
No one could ignore this anymore, even Marine Debris Conferences we’re not focused on plastic before that time. But now, it’s all focused on plastic and the amount has growing exponentially. Since the 1950s, an absurd amount of plastics has already been produced.
Scientists estimate that this amount is greater than 8. 3 billion metric tons manufactured. It's like this: If everyone on the planet had a car and then we added up the weight of all these cars that would be the same amount of waste that has been produced and that often ends up in the oceans.
And this is a problem of global scale. , I'm here in San Diego, at the Sixth International Marine Debris Conference, where activists experts and environmentalists discuss what to do to address this problem. 70% of the trash that is in the oceans, of the big ones that we can see with the naked eye, are ghost fishing gears.
These gears are fishing nets that are abandoned, lost, or discarded in the oceans. They have a lot to do with illegal fishing, so when the surveillance comes, they usually throw the fishing nets into the oceans and because of the currents, these fishing nets are carried to every corner of the world. And these nets will break and turn microplastics.
So we can't trace it from whether it came from a fishing net or not, we don't have much data but we know that the gears turns into microplastics and that there are more than 640 thousand tons of fishing nets that are discarded every year. It gives about a ton per minute. When we think about microplastics, in many instances, they may actually just be broken down fragments of bigger consumer plastics, but I think that sometimes we forget that gear that is unintentionally lost in the ocean they continue to killing animals for a long time and so when we think about ocean impact we can’t overlook fishing gear as a very real threat to the ocean and the animals who live there.
Globally, there are more than 136,000 whales, dolphins, seals, trapped and strangled and killed every year because of these fishing nets. Since 2001: - 9 sperm whales killed by plastic in the Mediterranean -One of them with almost 30 kg of plastic in the stomach It is estimated that 50% of sea turtles have already ingested plastic A research found plastic in all that were studied in South Brazil 90% of seabirds have already ingested plastic Between 1950 and 2010, their population fell almost 70% It's estimated that 10 to 15% of the species that are tradable are caught by ghost fishing gears. So this is an economic problem as well, because the fishing industry itself is being impacted by the waste it's generating So now more than 57% of the fish stocks have already been exploited to the point where you cannot fish anymore.
And a large number of the rest are already over exploited and are no longer able to recover. So fishing activity is collapsing and the fishing industry is also contributing to this when it loses these fishing nets. And these things degrades to microplastics, that then enters the marine food chain and comes to us and is already at our table.
Even animals like whales, that eat plankton can really be affected. So, even though this plastic is really tiny and you maybe not seeing it it’s affecting the tiniest animals at the bottom of the food chain most. Because the microplastic, when its broken down, it enters the food web in a lot of different steps.
These are the lantern fish, a major prey for tuna, salmon, some species of dolphins and whales and many other marine animals They're a key part of the life cycle of oceans around the world. The lantern fish, in turn, feeds on plankton. But what you're seeing is not plankton.
This is a microplastic, about the right size to be swallowed by lantern fish, which confuses them with food. In addition to BPA, which is a chemical compound released by the plastic itself, every bit of it also accumulates several other pollutants found in ocean waters: PCBs, DDTs and HAPs, industrial products that cause hormonal changes, heart and vision problems, poor fetal development and mainly cancer. These plastics, they bind to persistent organic pollutants, which are what?
They are the remains of agroindustry. It is the pesticides that end up being taken to sea and are floating there. So we are consuming plastic, we are consuming pesticides.
And these products, when they enter our system they are endocrine disruptors, so they cause problems in our endocrine system, they are carcinogenic. So there are a number of impacts on our health that people are unaware of. So we really need to inform the consumer, inform people and people to get this information to consume things in a much more conscious and responsible way.
So the first thing to do is inform yourself. Identify which species we can consume that are less threatened, whenever possible obtain certified products because in these certification mechanisms we know that fishing is not illegal, we know that it has sustainability criteria there, so the chances for consuming a product that has an environmental impact is much smaller. The fishing industry must also become responsible for the nets, so whenever they lose them, they report.
And when it is a net that is no longer used, give it a correct destination there are already many people buying this material, because it is often nylon, of high quality, that can be reused to make new nets or to do a series of others products but people do not communicate this, because they still have a culture that this is a byproduct because it is made from recycled garbage. So we have to break this culture, these things have a huge added value and companies have to say that and the consumer has to prioritize this type of product. Just to remembering that the fishing net is not the only source of plastic in the oceans, so always, always, whenever you can, say no to disposable straws, bags, and cups.
I already said that, but I will always repeat. And the challenge of this week, for you who like me, want to keep our seas cleaner, is to collect trash! That's right, and regardless if you live near or far from the sea, your trash, when it's not correctly disposed, ends up here.
About this I said in episode 2. If you lost it, There's a link here in the description below. So this week, you can pick up five different trash on your way.
If the path is by the beach, or at the edge of a river, even better. Enjoy and share this video with your friends, give a like and subscribe to the channel, because together we are stronger.
