An 8-minute cringe-worthy video of a straw being removed from a sea turtle’s nose while on a boat in Costa Rica has gone viral, racking up nearly one million views in only a couple of days.
The debilitated olive ridley sea turtle writhes in pain from a long plastic straw stuck in the nose. Blood drips down the sea creature’s head as researchers attempt to remove the garbage from it’s nostril. Several individuals must hold the majestic beast down as it wriggles in agony. Using a Swiss army knife and pliers, the amazing humans slowly and carefully withdraw the straw. They quickly discover that the straw is much, much longer than they anticipated. Once extracted, they find out that the straw is 5-inches long, which is unbelievable since the turtle’s head isn’t much larger.
“We disinfected the air passageway with iodine and kept the turtle for observation before releasing him back into the wild, said a researcher. “The bleeding stopped pretty much immediately after the removal of the straw.”
The researchers believe that turtle ate the straw and then regurgitated it, but it ended in it’s nasal cavity instead of the mouth. “He did very obviously not enjoy the procedure very much, but we hope that he is now able to breath more freely,” the YouTube description says.
This heartfelt and encouraging research efforts were brought about by second year Marine Biology PhD student Christine Figgener and Dr. Nathan J. Robinson.
If you’d like to donate to the research of sea turtles as well as the conservation of the sea turtle populations, they have set up a GoFundMe account.
Also stop using plastic straws, they’re unnecessary, dangerous for the environment and not exactly masculine.