Plastic ingestion by a Bryde's whale (Balaenoptera edeni) in Mindanao, Philippines and the need for consistent long-term recording of single individual strandings

The inherent challenges in studying interactions between marine litter and megafauna has greatly limited the available information on the impacts of marine litter in developing countries, such as the Philippines. Marine wildlife strandings offer a unique opportunity to gather important data and provide insights on marine litter and megafauna interaction. However, the general perception that strandings of single individuals yield minimal data limits its publication, resulting to limited dissemination of valuable information. Here, we present a case of plastic ingestion by a Bryde's whale in the southern part of the Philippines, providing the minimum data suggested for standardized reporting and discuss the importance of consistent long-term recording of data from cetacean strandings and the value of publishing results from single individual strandings. Also see: https://micro2022.sciencesconf.org/424243/document