IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN! Nesting season has opened for turtles and we all know the beauty of the Leatherback Sea Turtle. It’s one of the most magnificent creatures on earth which are the only remaining representatives of a family of turtles that traces its evolutionary roots back more than 100 million years. Despite we are lucky here in Trinidad to have such wonderful wildlife; one major threat to their survival is plastic pollution.
Many Leatherbacks fall victims to plastic debris. They ingest these floatable pieces which are often mistaken for their favourite food; jellyfish. According to National Geographic, some individuals have been found to have almost 11 pounds of plastic in their stomachs. What does that say about us humans? Is it that we don’t respect nature or our world? People often fail to realize, we have damaged our planet at a rate beyond which it can replenish itself and we have produced more waste than can be reabsorbed.
With increasing population, there has been an increase in demand for more resources and more use of plastic. However, plastic has a tendency to retain large amounts of heat. Microplastics have also been found to affect Leatherbacks. These sesame seed-sized plastics can increase sand temperature which modify and determine turtle sex as eggs incubate. This is because sea turtles have temperature dependent sex determination, which means their sex is determined by the sand temperature.
With this being said plastics can be detrimental to life and have major effects in population structure which can cause a collapse in species life.
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