Dying at Our Convenience

A briefing to the 64^th Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission, in Panama, on the impacts of marine debris on cetaceans.

Although there is a lack of up-to-date information on the scale of the problem, it can be very conservatively estimated that each year more than 100,000 marine mammals die from ingesting or becoming entangled in debris.

Marine debris has the potential to affect all trophic levels and the entire food chain, from planktonic microorganisms through to marine megafauna including cetaceans.