Nine years ago, in August 2015, Christine Figgener posted a video of her team removing a plastic straw from the nostril of a turtle. It went viral.
Christine is a friend of mine and fellow marine biologist. We have both conducted sea turtle research off the coast of Costa Rica, where her video was captured. It is emotional and disturbing – but for us this sort of occurrence is common. We regularly find turtles entangled in fishing gear, and I have seen turtles’ insides filled with plastic. What surprised all of us was how impactful the video would prove to be.…
