Cocaine sharks may be eating drugs left in the sea, scientists say

nme.com:

Cocaine Sharks, a highlight of Discovery’s Shark Week which is due to air tonight (July 26) at 10pm ET, marine scientists examine if sharks are consuming floating pharmaceuticals cast overboard by passing traffickers.“It’s a catchy headline to shed light on a real problem, that everything we use, everything we manufacture, everything we put into our bodies, ends up in our wastewater streams and natural water bodies, and these aquatic life we depend on to survive are then exposed to that,” Dr Tracy Fanara, a Florida-based environmental engineer and lead member of the research team told CBS News.She added: “We’ve seen studies with pharmaceuticals, cocaine, methamphetamines, ketamine, all of these, where fish are being [affected] by drugs.

If these cocaine bales are a point source of pollution, it’s very plausible [sharks] can be affected by this chemical.“Cocaine is so soluble that any of those packages open just a little, the structural integrity is destroyed and the drug is in the water.”In their research, conducted across six days at sea in the Florida Keys, Fanara and the British marine biologist Tom Hird observed sharks exhibiting peculiar behaviours.Footage from the show, which you can view above, showed that sharks did swim towards bales of fake cocaine, and Hird observed at least one hammerhead swimming differently than normal. “Now that is unusual.

It could be a past injury or it could be a chemical imbalance,” he says in the footage.They also observed a sandbar shark swimming in circles as it apparently focused on an imaginary object.“[Hird] did notice some strange behaviour, but there’s no telling whether the shark behaviour changes were associated with exposure to cocaine or if it was just a coincidence..