The little Magellanic penguin found lifeless about two weeks ago on a Brazilian beach had a mask in his stomach.
He had a mask in his small stomach, the kind used against Covid-19, the little Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) found lifeless about two weeks ago on a beach in Sao Sebastiao, in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The autopsy confirmed that his death is due precisely to the ingestion of an abandoned mask, the new frontier of pollution.
The growing increase in the “pandemic residues” of the new coronavirus are now in fact the new threat to the increasingly vulnerable marine fauna. And this episode is proof of that.
Coronavirus: Disposable masks and gloves are creating a new plastic pollution crisis
Conducted by the NGO Instituto Argonauta para la Conservación Costera y Marina, aimed at the rehabilitation of marine species affected by waste thrown into the sea, the autopsy revealed the presence of a black mask model N95nd in the stomach of the animal, weakened to death.
The president of the Argonauta Institute, the oceanographer Hugo Gallo Neto, highlighted the problems generated by inadequate waste disposal, especially those he defined "pandemic trash".
This poor little penguin washed up on a beach in Sao Paulo with an N95 mask in its stomach ?? #Brasil #COVID__19
More info in Portuguese here: https://t.co/GigaOarLvU
? : Instituto Argonauta pic.twitter.com/5ZUWEq3EJI
— George Powell (@PowellGeorge) September 17, 2020
"We have been finding masks for some time, we have located about 135 at the moment, and the case of the penguin is the first of an animal that probably died from ingesting the garbage of the pandemic," explained Gallo.
Magellanic penguins migrate every year from Argentine Patagonia in search of food, but some of them break away from the group and end up on the beaches of Brazil.
“In this period there are animals, many times weak and without care”, as the biologist Carla Beatriz Barbosa explains.
Animals found alive by the Institute are transferred to rehabilitation centers and subsequently returned to nature, while those that appear lifeless are subjected to an autopsy.
“It is a very serious problem and Brazil has an inefficient policy in combating the problem of litter at sea. This happens due to a problem of education of the population, management, supervision and legislation by the public authorities ”, she concludes.
Source: Argonaut Institute
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