[imagesource:gencraft/ai]

Move over Cocaine Bear and Cocaine Hippos, there’s a new coked-up creature in the animal kingdom: sharks.

Okay, there were already reports of cocaine-guzzling sharks in Florida feeding off dumped packages from drug smugglers, but now there are drug-fueled finned creatures in and around Brazil as well.

Scientists at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation tested 13 of the Brazilian sharpnose sharks taken from the South Atlantic Ocean near Rio de Janeiro and found that they all had high levels of the drug in their muscles and liver.

Everyone is now worrying that high levels of this white stuff could reduce their life expectancy, damaging their eyesight and affecting their hunting skills. They’re also concerned about how exactly the drug is affecting their behaviour if it is at all.

The paper, published in Science of the Total Environment, suggests the drug is getting into their system through the drainage of illegal labs that produce drugs or from the excrement of drug users through untreated sewage, per NDTV.

It could also be that the sharks are munching on the bundles of cocaine that become lost or dumped in the sea by drug smugglers.

“We don’t usually see many bales of coke dumped or lost at sea here, unlike in Mexico and Florida,” a scientist told The Telegraph, asserting that it was highly unlikely the sharks had been eating cocaine from dumped packages.

According to scientists, the test results showed “chronic exposure” to cocaine in the sharks, about 100 times higher than previously found in other aquatic creatures.

Image: A Brazilian sharpnose shark

Although there was no evidence the drug was causing them to “go nuts” or even to go on a feeding frenzy, per The Telegraph.

Dr Rachel Ann Hauser-Davis, a British scientist and member of the research team from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, said this was ‘due to human use of cocaine in Rio de Janeiro and the discharge of human urine and faeces by sewage outfalls, as well as from illegal labs’.

Dr Tracy Fanara, an expert in ecotoxicology and environmental engineering from the University of Florida, told The Telegraph: “They may not be going nuts from the cocaine but it could reduce their life expectancy.”

While they estimate that the cocaine was harmful to them, it is not known exactly to what degree the drug could affected their behaviour or if it makes them even slightly more aggressive and unpredictable.

“This may be the case, as cocaine targets the brain, and hyperactive and erratic behaviour has been noted in other animals. It’s a possibility and further studies are required,” said Dr Enrico Mendes Saggioro, an ecotoxicologist.

Big Think cautions media to be careful about further demonising sharks, noting that Discovery Channel’s Shark Week often shares incorrect or wildly misleading information about sharks.

“This year, the trend continues with a show called “Cocaine Sharks.” The show suggested that sharks off the Florida Keys are getting high on and even addicted to cocaine. But the experiments in the show were unconvincing. Researchers aren’t sure if cocaine would even affect sharks. If anything, cocaine acts as an anaesthetic in fish.”

In Cocaine Sharks, marine biologist Tom Hird and environmental scientist Tracy Fanara teamed up to test whether there is any truth to the claims that cocaine-guzzling sharks get more hectic. But after noting some “tweaked” behaviour in a potential “junkie shark,” they concluded their dive, subsequently admitting that nobody knows what a shark high on cocaine looks like.

So maybe we would be wise to take the fishy tales about Cocaine Sharks with a generous pinch of salt.

[source:ndtv]