We were honored to have De-Hao Chen as our guest. He is the deputy director at the National Museum of Marine Biology & Aquarium in Pingtung, Taiwan. He shared many interesting sea animals with us, especially Taiwan’s cute little white whales. Little white whales eat by sliding food down their throats, and a video will be provided below.

At the beginning, Dr. Chen introduced us to cute marine creatures. Then he showed the results of beach cleanups conducted by his team. He said beach cleaning works, and there is much less trash along Taiwan’s coast than before.

However, some parts of the talk were more serious. Dr. Chen shared that sea turtles can get injured by boat propellers, causing their internal organs to be exposed. Some turtles also inhale plastic straws, and other sea animals can suffer from eating plastic, which makes their stomachs swollen and stops them from eating. Over time, they can starve to death.

Finally, Dr. Chen called on everyone to work together to reduce ocean pollution. He explained that cleaning up alone is not enough—if other countries continue to produce garbage, it can still flow back to our oceans because the ocean is part of the Earth’s global system.