Shocking items found in the stomach of a killer whale... See photos

 

A killer whale also called Orca was found dead on a holiday spot in South Africa. It was washed ashore at Plettenberg Bay on South Africa's Western Cape the week before Christmas and on cutting open its stomach, shocking items were found.

Conservation and wildlife experts on taking a closer look at the animal and the content of its stomach found that its last few days of desperate life had forced it to dine on rubbish and disposed thrash, as that was the only 'food' it could find in the holiday spot.

The ripped stomach of the whale contained Used yoghurt pots, old shoe soles and ripped food wrappers and many other human waste.

Plett Stranding Network co-ordinator, Dr Gwenith Penry wrote on her Facebook page that the horrible discovery inside the 5.7m whale was alongside little actual food - and there's a chance the human waste could have contributed to her death.

She pointed out that organ and blood samples will be analysed in due course to test for toxicology, pathology and microplastics, but that in the mean time, we can get a very good idea of the condition of the animal and what it was doing in the days leading up to its death by examining the stomach contents.

 

She revealed: "This 5.7m female was starving! She had very little real food in her stomach and the stomach lining was disintegrating. We found several large pieces of plastic (yoghurt pots, shoe sole, food wrappers), seagrass and a lot of tubed organisms (yet to be identified). All of this suggests that she was trying to feed in the shallow areas of our bay."

"It is likely that this individual became ill and too weak to hunt with the rest of her pod so moved inshore and tried to feed on what was available and easy to find."

That is possible, because Killer whales of South Africa typically only feed on mammals, seals, dolphins - or large fish and squid.

The initial dissection of the orca whale was carried out at a nearby rubbish dump, as the volunteers had no official premises in which to conduct the procedure once the National Sea Rescue Institute had removed it from its resting place.

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