Photographer captures sea creatures among 'garbage'

Photographer captures sea creatures among 'garbage', it is truly shocking.

Recently, media reported that a study by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency found that more than 90 percent of petrels found near the Danish coast had plastic stomachs and died of starvation.

Petrel is a type of seabird found mainly in the North Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, usually searching for food on the surface of the sea. But plastic particles floating on the surface can accumulate in the stomachs of petrels after they eat it. The plastic gives them a feeling of fullness, but it's not food, so they eventually die of starvation.

In fact, it is not only petrels, sperm whales that eat too much plastic to die, and polar bears that desperately search for food in garbage dumps. As the concept of garbage separation gradually takes hold, such tragic cases still occur.

If you walk into the Chengdu Museum's new exhibition "Bustling with Life: The 54th Global Wildlife Photography Exhibition," the real-life images of plicifs submerged in waste, pygmy gobies living in glass houses, and dead sperm whales on the beach are especially striking. The photographer uses lens language and light and shadow art to reflect on the impact of human activities on the natural world, bringing the audience a strong visual impact and thought resonance.

> Life in the waste

"The ocean is a victim of human activities", explained French photographer Greg. As a result, the frogfish now have no place to hide. A large amount of plastic debris separates nearby algae, so the algae can't accumulate to form a home for the frogfish.

The European Commission estimates that plastic items such as straws, bags and cups make up about 70% of the plastic waste in the world's oceans. Some even refer to the vast amount of plastic carried by ocean currents as a "seventh continent."

The frogfish is a skilled camouflaged and voracious ambush predator, often using "floating islands" of brown sargasso to track its prey and trap it with overhead bait. In recent decades, frogfish have been forced to share their habitat with the 12.7 million tons of plastic waste that ends up in the ocean each year. Reducing the use of plastic is undoubtedly the most effective solution to protect the frogfish.

The guardian of the glass house

A few centimetres from the narrow mouth of the bottle, Australian photographer Wayne zoomed his camera in on the Goby's dramatic, bidirectional bulging blue eyes. It swims back and forth, blurring its form into a yellow mist.

The colorful yellow pygmy Gobies often appear in pairs with a mate and are petite, often using abandoned wormholes, empty bottles or jars as their habitat. In this temporary habitat, the female lays several batches of eggs, while the male guards against intruders.

As plastic waste increases, the choice of plastic bottles and cans for shelter is an increasingly visible feature of these pygmy Gobies' ocean lives.

> Sperm whale on the beach

British photographer David witnessed this depressing scene as a digger dragged a dead sperm whale onto the beach. The whale was one of five beached on the British coast, and the giant carcass, which collapsed on the beach, drew onlookers from far and wide. David said: 'It was incredibly upsetting to witness this huge animal being dragged away by a mechanical monster.

The sperm whale, such as the overlords of the sea, can also die in the plastic waste siege.

The carcass of a sperm whale, believed to be about 6 years old, was found on Cefalu Beach in Sicily, Italy, in May. A large amount of plastic was found in the whale's stomach, but it's not clear whether the waste contributed to the animal's death. If all goes well, sperm whales usually live to the age of 70.

Six sperm whale carcasses have washed up on Italian beaches in the past five months. One of them was a pregnant female with about 45 pounds of plastic waste in her stomach.

West China Metropolis Daily - Cover News Reporter Zeng Jie

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