Nine years ago, in August 2015, Christine Figgener posted a video of her team removing a plastic straw from a turtle’s nostril, which quickly went viral.
Christine is my friend and fellow marine biologist. We have both done sea turtle research off the coast of Costa Rica where her video was shot. It is moving and disturbing, but for us, this is commonplace. We frequently find turtles entangled in fishing gear and have seen turtles with plastic stuck inside. What surprised us all was how impactful this video was. …
