seaturtle.org : MTN : ARCHIVES : Sign In

On 10 August 2015, we were conducting boat surveys in search of olive ridley sea turtles in the waters between Playas Del Coco and Playa Nancite on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. At N 10°40’37.9” W 085°42’32.6”, we encountered a pair of mating olive ridley turtles with an additional male turtle close-by. The non-mating male was captured by hand and brought on the boat for tagging and tissue sampling. Upon inspecting the animal at close range an encrusted cylindrical object was discovered in the sea turtle’s left nostril. Initially (Figure 1a), we presumed that the object was the tube from an epibiotic tube worm and attempted to collect the specimen for cataloguing. Using a pair of pliers from a Swiss army knife we gently pulled on the object until the object was protruding from the nostril by approximately 1 cm (Figure 1b). Surprised at the length of the object and still not knowing exactly what is was, we trimmed off the protruding end for further investigation. Upon closer inspection, it became clear that the object was a rigid plastic straw. Bringing the turtle in for veterinary treatment was not an option as our permits allowed only for the turtle to be held on the boat for the regular sampling procedure (tissue sampling and tagging). Furthermore, we were 1-2 hours from port and had no assurance that appropriate treatment would be available even if the turtle was taken to the nearest veterinary clinic or hospital. Thus, we decided to remove the straw in situ. After a few short pulls, the entire straw, which measured a total 10 cm in length, was extracted (Figure 1c). By this point, the turtle was bleeding out of its nose. We applied Betadine® solution to the nostril and in less than a minute the bleeding stopped. With the turtle breathing clearly and appearing healthy in all other respects, it was returned to the ocean and swam away.

Figure 1. (A) Plastic straw in the left nostril of an olive ridley sea turtle. (B) Removal of the straw. (C) The straw next to a ruler for scale.

We do not know conclusively how long the straw had remained in the sea turtle’s nostril or how it came to be there in the first place but we can provide some basic conjectures. Judging by the stained coloration of the straw and its general state of degradation (Figure 1c), we predict the straw must have been in the turtle for at least a few weeks if not longer. Furthermore, the effort required to remove the straw suggests that scar tissue had begun to form around the base of the straw. As for how the straw found its way into the sea turtles nostril, we think it is highly unlikely that the straw would have been driven into the sea turtles nose from the outside (e.g., if the turtle impaled its nostril on a straw that may have been sticking out of the seabed); the straw was too deeply embedded into the nostril. Instead, we believe that the straw was initially ingested orally but was later regurgitated; however, when this happened the straw did not pass out the mouth but passed through the nasal cavity. In support of this argument, the nasal cavity in sea turtles is linked directly to the buccal cavity through a long nasopharyngeal duct (Wyneken 2001). Furthermore, the curve of the straw after removal (Figure 1c) matches the anatomical form of the nasopharyngeal duct (Wyneken, 2001).

The surprising discovery of a plastic straw lodged into the nose of an olive ridley turtle is a single example of the multitude of effects that plastic debris can have on marine life. While the impact of the straw was not immediately fatal, it evidently blocked the nasal passage of the turtle and detrimentally affected the turtle’s capacity to breathe. In turn, this could markedly lower this animal’s reductive fitness by reducing its ability to feed or even mate. Considering the plastic is found ingested by all sea turtles species (Schuyler et al. 2014) as well as many fish (Boerger et al. 2010) and seabirds (Tanaka et al. 2013), we propose that strategies for reducing plastic pollution in the oceans should play a central role in broad-scale conservation management strategies, not just for sea turtles, but all marine life.

Acknowledgements. We thank Jose McDonal Vega Gomez, Andrey Castillo MacCarthy, Daniel Stuart, and Veronica Koleff for providing assistance in the field. Tera Dornfeld and Pamela Plotkin provided editorial guidance. Deep Blue Diving provided the boat we used in this study. Funding was provided by Pamela Plotkin and Texas A&M University.

BOERGER, C.M., G.L. LATTIN & S.L. MOORE. 2010. Plastic ingestion by planktivorous fishes in the North Pacific Central Gyre. Marine Pollution Bulletin 60: 2275-2278.

CÓZAR, A., F. ECHEVARRÍA, J.I. GONZÁLEZ-GORDILLO, X. IRIGOIEN, B. ÚBEDA, S. HERNÁNDEZ-LEÓN, Á.T. PALMA, S. NAVARRO, J. GARCÍA-DE-LOMAS, A. RUIZ, M.L. FERNÁDEZ-DE-PUELLES & C.M. DUARTE. 2014. Plastic debris in the open ocean. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111: 10239-10244.

DERRAIK, J.G.B. 2002. The pollution of the marine environment by plastic debris: a review. Marine Pollution Bulletin 44: 842-852.

LAZAR, B. & R. GRAĈAN. 2011. Ingestion of marine debris by loggerhead sea turtles, Caretta caretta, in the Adriatic Sea. Marine Pollution Bulletin 62: 43-47.

PLOTKIN, P.T., M.K. WICKSTEN & A.F. AMOS. 1993. Feeding ecology of the loggerhead sea turtle Caretta caretta in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. Marine Biology 115: 1-15.

SCHUYLER, Q., B.D. HARDESTY, C. WILCOX & K. TOWNSEND. 2014. Global analysis of anthropogenic debris ingestion by sea turtles. Conservation Biology 28: 129-139.

TANAKA, K., H. TAKADA, R. YAMASHITA, K. MIZUKAWA, M. FUKUWAKA & Y WATANUKI. 2013. Accumulation of plastic-derived chemicals in tissues of seabirds ingesting marine plastics. Marine Pollution Bulletin 69: 219-222.

WYNEKEN, J. 2001. The Anatomy of Sea Turtles. U.S. Department of Commerce NOAA Tech Memo NMFS-SEFSC-470, 172 pp.