Hutchinson and Simmonds, 1991:

"Plastic debris, including discarded fishing netting, packing bands and plastic bags, have been associated with turtle mortality and there is evidence that this is an increasingly important problem. The incidence of stranded turtles which were entangled in such materials or which were found to have ingested marine debris has almost certainly increased because of the development of plastics and their entry and increased prevalence in the marine environment.

Entanglement may cause drowning, infected wounds or behavioural changes, including altered feeding reactions, ultimately contributing to the animal's demise.

Ingestion may cause internal blockages, ulcers or injuries. Some material may also pass harmlessly through the gut but plastics retained there for a period of time may also partly decompose. This would be expected to release plasticizers (such as PCB's), concentrations of which have been found in birds to correlate with ingested plastics.

Hirth (1987) noted that the hazards of debris to turtles on nesting beaches include: sharp objects cutting flippers; large objects forming obstructions preventing an animal crawling up the beach and laying eggs, although subsequently in may move further along the beach and nest; heavy objects washed up over the clutch may prevent emergence of hatchlings; and litter may impede the progress of hatchlings to the sea, thus increasing the time when predation can occur."

Citation and/or URL

Hutchinson, J. and Simmonds, M. 1991, A review of the effects of pollution on marine turtles: a Greenpeace ecotoxicology project, Greenpeace, London.   

Spatial Coverage

International

Temporal Coverage

Information up to late 1980s 

Update Frequency

Not applicable 

Other Information

None