Moment of a turtle choking on plastic off the coast of Hawaii revives memories of a 2015 video of a straw being pulled from a sea creature’s bleeding nose

The heartbreaking moment a turtle suffocated on a piece of plastic was captured by divers off the coast of Hawaii, highlighting the extent of pollution in our oceans.

A group of 100 people strapped into scuba gear spent Earth Day cleaning up pollution from the seabed in Oahu and watched in horror as the sea creature mistook the trash for a jellyfish.

The video shows the green sea turtle swimming towards the divers, opening its mouth and coughing up a thin sheet of plastic – along with plastic bottles, cans and other waste littering the ocean floor.

The disturbing images echo a 2015 incident when researchers discovered a one-inch plastic straw stuck in a turtle’s nose in Costa Rican waters, sparking a movement to ban the waste.

Diver Brittany Ziegler (pictured), 34, who shot the video, said: ‘We were on Oahu for a weekend anti-plastic campaign, so it was ironic that we captured those horrible images of the turtle on that day

A group of 100 people strapped into scuba gear spent Earth Day cleaning up pollution from the seabed in Oahu

Diver Brittany Ziegler, 34, who shot the video, said, “We were on Oahu for a weekend anti-plastic campaign, so it was ironic that we captured those horrible images of the turtle on that day.

Ziegler said SWSM: ‘Over a hundred people showed up and we removed several thousand pounds worth of plastic from the ocean.

“As we were live streaming the cleanup to thousands of people on my TikTok, this beautiful green sea turtle slowly came up to us and spit out this plastic.

‘I just thought, poor dear, we don’t know how much plastic she could have had in her stomach.

‘She just swam over to us, looked into the camera and spit the plastic out. It was as if she wanted to tell us something.

“They like to eat jellyfish, but they can’t tell the difference.”

The video also brings back memories of a turtle found in Costa Rica in 2015 by researchers who removed a one-inch plastic straw from the creature’s nose.

The video echoed another from 2015 captured by researchers off the coast of Costa Rica.

Marine biologist Christine Figgener and her team came across a sea turtle in the water and noticed something was stuck in its nose.

At first they thought it was a parasitic worm, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be a plastic straw.

The video showed the team slowly pulling the waste from the turtle’s nostril as blood began to flow down its face.

Using pliers, researchers slowly removed the straw while the turtle appeared to be in excruciating pain throughout the ordeal.

The videographer then turned to the camera and said, “This is why we don’t need plastic straws.”

As many as 30 percent of turtles and 71 percent of seabirds have plastic material in their stomachs. It is also estimated that one million seabirds and 100,000 other species of marine life die each year from ingesting plastic.

After the incident in Costa Rica, many US states and international companies have taken action to ban plastic straws.