'Sightings included everything from the unmistakable fin whale, pods of 30+ individual pilot whales and even the charismatic
Cuvier's beaked whale. While the long list of cetaceans spotted was an absolute highlight, it wasn't the only positive from the trip.
In March, a beached
Cuvier's beaked whale that eventually died in Compostela Valley was discovered to have some 40 kg of plastic trash in its stomach.
Less than a month earlier, a
Cuvier's beaked whale -- one that prefers to swim thousands of metres underwater -- was found off the coast of the Philippines, with 40 kilograms of plastic inside it.
But it was his findings on the cause of death of a juvenile
Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) that he became the draw of international press and conservationists.
The video showing marine biologist and environmentalist Darrell Blatchley of Davao City performing a necropsy last month on the
Cuvier's beaked whale quickly spread like wildfire on the internet.
Last March, a
Cuvier's beaked whale died of starvation and was unable to eat because of the trash filling its stomach while being stranded in Compostela Valley.
The
Cuvier's beaked whale, which weighed 1,100 pounds and measured 15 feet, was filled with 88 pounds of bags, nylon ropes, and other disposable plastic products.
The 5.65-meter-long
Cuvier's beaked whale was found on a Hualien County beach, one of three whales found dead in eastern Taiwan on Friday (March 15).
An autopsy on the
Cuvier's beaked whale revealed it died from "gastric shock" after ingesting 16 rice sacks, four banana plantation bags, multiple shopping bags, and hundreds of other small pieces of plastic.
In the latest case, a
Cuvier's beaked whale died on Saturday in the southern province of Compostela Valley where it was stranded a day earlier, the government's regional fisheries bureau said.
The
Cuvier's beaked whale 'had the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale,' a marine biologist said.