Disgusted Kiwi snorkeller films plastic-filled water while swimming with manta rays in Bali

Kiwi Brittany Campbell was snorkelling off Nusa Penida island when she caught the shocking sight on video.

Snorkelling in rubbish infested waters was not part of the tour brief one young Kiwi woman signed up for while on holiday in Bali.

Brittany Campbell and her fiancé, Steven Turner, went on a manta ray snorkelling tour off the coast of Nusa Penida island recently. The island is located about 30 minutes by boat from Nusa Lembongan.

There was no disappointment in the manta ray department - a video Ms Campbell took while on the tour shows plenty. But there was also no shortage of rubbish in the water, with bits of plastic and other waste captured on film.

In fact, there was so much rubbish Ms Campbell’s fiancé thinks he saw some of it float right into a manta rays’ mouth.

“They swim with their mouths open, so they were swallowing anything. It wasn’t just a random piece floating by - it was everywhere,” said Ms Campbell.

Snorkelling with a group of six, she wasn’t the only one disgusted by the sight.

“One guy actually got out of the water because he was really upset by it,” she said.

“It was so sad because there are manta rays there every single day. That’s their home, filled with rubbish.”

She said it was concerning how blasé the tour operators were about the rubbish being there.

“I was pretty shocked that it seemed so normal.

“One tour guide who took the photos of us snorkelling didn’t seem phased.”

The potential hazards of the rubbish floating past also worried her.

“At the beach in Nusa Lembongan you could see rubbish like disposable razors,” said Ms Campbell.

“Just gross stuff like that, so when I saw the rubbish while snorkelling, I thought there could be anything and everything under there.” 

The female Hawksbill turtle washed up on the shores of Northland last month, weak and under-weight.

Prior to the tour, Ms Campbell said she had been snorkelling in Bali before but had never experienced anything like it.

A friend of the couple who also did the same tour last June didn’t have the same experience. Ms Campbell thought the recent weather could have had an impact. 

"It had been raining so I think it might have brought it to the surface," she said.

More and more research is being done about the threat that rubbish, more specifically plastic, poses to marine life. The likes of sea turtles are washing up on beaches around the world and even in New Zealand dead or sick due to plastic consumption. 

A study out of the US released yesterday  looked into why sea turtles are so attracted to plastic. Originally it was thought they were mistaking the plastic for prey, like jellyfish.

But researchers from the University of Florida found that loggerhead sea turtles respond to odours from biofouled plastics in the same way they respond to food odorants. Researchers have suggested that turtles might be attracted to plastic not only by the way it looks, but by the way it smells.

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