It's sad enough when sea animals become entangled in our trash after it finds its way into the ocean, but a United States Coast Guard crew found something unusual back in November: a loggerhead sea turtle trapped inside of a floating cocaine stash.
26 packages of cocaine, weighing in at more than 1,800 pounds, surrounded the sea turtle. Authorities valued this much cocaine at almost $53 million on the street.
The Coast Guard crew managed to free the sea turtle without much fuss, but they did notice the sea turtle's "raw" neck from being tangled in the plastic lined between each package. It's quite lucky that they found the turtle when they did. Otherwise, it might have remained stuck and starved to death.
While not everyone's out dumping more than $53 million worth of cocaine in the ocean, the sea turtle's situation reminds us how imperative it is that we clean up after ourselves and keep our oceans clean (and in this case, drug-free).
