Sperm whales who got beached had been eating garbage

[AptaMer]

This doesn't seem to have been reported in the North American media, didn't even see anything about it in the UK media, but a really disturbing thing has been happening on Germany's coastline.

A bunch of sperm whales (13) died and washed up recently on beaches in Schleswig-Holstein (the northernmost state in Germany, that borders with Denmark.) Or maybe they stranded and then died on the beaches? It's not clear, but they washed up on beaches that front on relatively shallow water where they're not usually found, and they weren't old.

What was concerning was that 4 of the whales had ingested a lot of plastic crap. This to my mind reiterates the importance of figuring out how to stop dumping of plastic garbage in the sea.

http://www.nationalpark-wattenmeer.de/sh/misc/untersuchung-der-gestrandeten-pottwale-grosse-mengen-plastikmull-den-magen-gefunden

I apologize that the article is in German, I haven't been able to find a report in English on the study. Did this get reported in the popular media in Germany?

[Echidna]

This was reported in the popular media, albeit briefly.
The sad truth is that this happens quite a lot.

The autopsy indicates the whales were all healthy despite the garbage in their stomachs, and it's not clear how they ended up in the shallows of the shelf sea.
There is no theory yet as to why in recent years so many whales have beached around Germany and Denmark.

My guess is it's caused by the offshore bird shredders (euphemistically called wind power plants).
Those produce a gigantic din in the ocean, and they're everywhere along the coasts.