Microplastics found in dolphins’ Lungs

Traces of microplastics were found in the breath of eleven bottlenose dolphins, raising concerns about the potential damage to their lungs. **Courtesy of Naja Bertolt Jenson via Unsplash**

As someone who’s said that their favorite animal is a dolphin essentially their whole life, it was disheartening to read the Smithsonian article about how recently, microplastics were found in the lungs of bottlenose dolphins.

The microplastics were discovered in the breaths of eleven bottlenose dolphins showing how extensive pollution is. In an interview, Miranda K. Dziobak, a biochemist at the University of South Carolina, said that “because of their large lung capacity and deep breaths, we are worried that breathing in microplastics may damage their lungs.”

Microplastics have been found to cause health complications including oxidative stress and indigestion, but can also have the potential to harm human lungs. This is why finding these microplastics in the lungs of dolphins can have further implications for other species.

Dolphins are often studied for pollution research because they inhabit waters all around the world. In order to find the microplastics for this study, researchers conducted a catch-and-release assessment on five bottlenose dolphins in Florida and six in Louisiana. They held a petri dish over each dolphin’s blowhole as they exhaled in order to get the sample. They also collected samples from the surrounding air just to make sure that the microplastics were from the dolphins and not the air.

In total, they found 54 different types of microplastic across all the samples. This included polymers from plastic packaging such as water bottles as well as polymethyl and polymethacrylate, which are found in clothing. The levels of these chemicals were higher in the dolphins than they were in humans.

Sadly, it’s known that there are trillions of microplastic particles in our oceans. Scientists suspect that when dolphins and other marine creatures surface to take a breath, they are more susceptible to the microplastics in the air that come off of waves.

Dolphins are typically a good indicator of overall marine health, so it’s very concerning to see so many microplastics present in their lungs. The question that remains is: What are the long-term effects of this? How do all of these microplastics affect the dolphins’ health? These aren’t questions anyone knows the answer to, but I’m sure we will soon enough.