Cocaine Found In Sharks Leaves Scientists 'Dumbfounded'
HuffPost
The baffling research raises serious questions about ocean pollution.
Scientists are blown away after finding significant traces of cocaine in a small sample of sharks from the waters off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
In a study published online last week, researchers reported the presence of the unfiltered drug in the liver and muscle tissues of all 13 Brazilian sharpnose sharks they tested.
Rachel Ann Hauser-Davis, a co-author of the study and a biologist at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, said her team was “actually dumbfounded” by the discovery.
“We were excited in a bad way, but it’s a novel report,” she told The New York Times. “It’s the first time this data has ever been found for any top predator.”
Though past research has detected cocaine in an array of smaller ocean species, like mollusks and crustaceans, the amount seen in the sharks was 100 times higher than that found in previous studies of marine wildlife, suggesting chronic exposure to the substance.
