It's always sad to see a dead animal, but it's even sadder when you realise that it's died because of the ignorance of humans.
A whale was found washed up on a beach in Norway with up to 30 plastic bags found in its stomach - something experts say isn't surprising.
Given that the amount of waste flowing into the sea is growing, the findings were barely a shock for the researchers at University of Bergen cutting open the mammal, who said it "was full of plastic bags and packaging with labels in Danish and English".
The contents of the whale's stomach emptied into a bin. Credit: University of Bergen
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Zoologist Dr Terje Lislevand thinks that the whale's intestines were probably blocked by the build up of plastic, which lead wardens to have to put it down.
Sadly it doesn't look like this type of thing will stop anytime soon, experts predicting that by 2050 fish will be outnumbered by the amount of waste in the oceans. It is believed that there is already around five trillion pieces of plastic litter there.
This isn't the only ignorance that kills sea creatures. Unfortunately places like Sea World exploit whales and dolphins for entertainment while unsuspecting tourists lap it up.
Similarly, last week tourists ended up killing a baby dolphin because they kept it out of water for too long to take pictures of it.
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The poor dolphin died on a beach in Argentina, ignorant holiday-goers surrounding it.
Credit: C5N
"He was young and came to the shore," Claudia, a witness to the incident, told CN5. "They could have returned him to the water - in fact, he was breathing.
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"But everyone started taking photos and touching him.
"They said he was already dead."
Another major regressive step for human/animal relations.
Featured Image Credit: University of BergenTopics: Whale