Cocaine Sharks: Damn Nature, You Scary!

We have two words for you: cocaine sharks. 

Multiple sharks have tested positive for cocaine just off the Brazil coast. Rachel Ann Hauser Davis, a biologist for Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, told NPR that they dissected 13 wild sharpnose sharks that were caught near the Rio de Janeiro and they all had high traces of cocaine in their muscles and livers.

During their study, researchers said they found that the sharks were “tuned up, on full alert, ready to go, looking, looking, looking.”

At first, one would assume the sharks were exposed to the drug due to narcotraffickers tossing product in the sea to protect themselves. However, Hauser Davis says it could be as simple as the sharks are living in contaminated wastewater in the Rio de Janerio.

“Probably the main source would be human use of cocaine and metabolization and urine and feces discharge, and the second source would be from illegal refining labs.” 

So not only do these sharks unintentionally get a high, but it’s not even pure! Damn humans, that’s brutal..