Troll-meister and “Man Made Global Warmist” DA sent this story to me looking for an ‘A ha!’ moment. He then questioned whether I cared about God’s creatures. I can only assume there were some tears involved. 
Now look at this headline and then read the story. No mention of plastic bags. Wishful thinking by some headline writer at the AP? There are thousands of hits on this one three paragraph story by the AP which says NOTHING about plastic bags. On Friday afternoon three of us tried to find the derivation of the story. The original story, the original data, the original work about the necropsy were not found. We just found thousands of hits on newspaper sites referring to this one three ‘graf story. 
We found a different headline in Puerto Rico, however. Did you know they call ethylene bags “scandal bags?” Very interesting. Yes, I’m sure there’s no bias here.

Associated Press

Whale death off Puerto Rico blamed on plastic bags

Associated Press May 6, 2011 12:27 PM Copyright Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Was it plastic bags? 

Nilda Jimenez says that she conducted a necropsy of the Gervais beaked whale and found more than 10 pounds (4.5 kilos) of twisted plastic inside its stomach. The marine mammal specialist said Friday she has no doubt the plastic caused the death by preventing the whale from getting adequate nutrition.

The biologist from the Commonwealth Department of Natural and Environmental Resource–which is what she does for her day job– never says “bags” she just says “twisted plastic.” 
This poor adolescent whale died from something. She says it was malnourished and blamed “twisted plastic.” Here’s what Greenpeace says about the wrongheaded claims about plastic bags killing mammals:

David Santillo, a marine biologist at Greenpeace, told The[London] Times that bad science was undermining the Government’s case for banning the bags. “It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags,” he said. “The evidence shows just the opposite. We are not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags.

“It doesn’t do the Government’s case any favours if you’ve got statements being made that aren’t supported by the scientific literature that’s out there. With larger mammals it’s fishing gear that’s the big problem. On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue. It would be great if statements like these weren’t made.”


Where did this twisted plastic come from? Cruise ships? Fishing line? Nets? No idea. But it appears the AP concludes it’s caused by “bags” though the word appears nowhere in the story. 

Why am I skeptical? Oh, I dunno. They never lie about this plastic bag stuff to further their desire to ban them and tax paper bags or anything. I must have been imagining this, this, this, this among other untruths about this issue. And you know the folks in Salem will use this incomplete story to try to rescue their “plastic” bag ban  and bag tax out of committee.  


And I’m sure that the Polti’fact’ people will want to fact check this AP article right away. Oh, wait… What’s the point? They keep getting it wrong anyway. 
5th Listener Ted has a theory on this:

Victoria,
CLEARLY, that whale ATE the swirling mass of bags and that’s what killed it. THAT’S why no one could find the bags swirling in the ocean anymore…..
Ted
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com