Plastic peril strikes: Haunting image shows dead sea turtle after it died from lack of oxygen while tangled in fishing wire

Shane Gross, 34, took the haunting images on the Harbour Islands, Bahamas 

It's likely that the green sea turtle died from lack of oxygen once being tangled

Gross said he wanted to spread awareness about what ends up in the ocean

By RYAN FAHEY FOR MAILONLINE

31 January 2020

A haunting image of a sea turtle after it died from lack of oxygen while tangled in fishing wire off the coast of the Bahamas has drawn attention to the damage caused by the plastic floating through our oceans.

The poor turtle is tangled in the fishing wire and probably died from lack of oxygen.

Shane Gross, 34, a photojournalist, took the photos while on the Harbour Island, Bahamas.

34-year-old photojournalist, Shane Gross, 34, snapped these photos of a dead green gea turtle near the Harbour Island in the Bahamas


The turtle is pictured tangled in fishing wire and is thought to have died from a lack of oxygen

He said: 'My partner found the turtle already long dead with fishing line entangling both the turtle and the coral.

'In all likelihood the green sea turtle became entangled and could not reach the surface to breathe and drowned.

'I removed the fishing line so no scavengers would also become entangled and took pictures to help prevent this from happening again.

'I felt terrible imagining what kind of suffering this turtle must have gone through.

'People who see the photos say that they find the image very disturbing.

Gross (pictured) said: 'I felt terrible imagining what kind of suffering this turtle must have gone through'

'Discarded fishing gear continues to kill animals long after its usefulness to humanity is gone either through entanglement, called Ghost Fishing, or it breaks down into microplastics causing problems throughout the entire food chain.

'A large percentage of the great pacific garbage patch is made up of abandoned fishing gear.

'We need to re-think how we get our protein.'


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