Leatherback Trust Biologist Removes Plastic Fork From Nose of Olive Ridley Turtle

Leatherback Trust biologist Nathan J. Robinson, who last summer helped remove a plastic straw from the nose of an olive ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea), this week, released a video of him removing a plastic fork from the nostril of an olive ridley sea turtle. The video is really depressing not only for the pain the turtle had gone through with the fork up its nose, but the state in which the world’s oceans have fast become a trash dump for societies’ single use mentality.

Robinson at first tries to remove the plastic fork with his hands, but when that proves unsuccessful, he uses the pliers on a Swiss Army knife to pull the plastic straw out of the turtle’s nostril. While Robinson was successful in the removal of the plastic fork, the sea turtle’s nose began to bleed. Let’s hope that the chelonian checked out ok as he was returned to the ocean!

The IUCN’s Marine Turtle Specialist Group lists discarded plastics as a major threat to sea turtles, and especially leatherbacks. Leatherback turtles feed almost exclusively on jellyfish, and they often mistake floating plastic bags, balloons, and other trash that ends up in the ocean as jellyfish.