Marine biologists in Brazil have been finding “potentially worrying” levels of cocaine in wild sharks caught off the South American country’s coast tested for the drug, now researchers believe that the nose candy’s been finding its way into them via runoff from drug labs producing it and/or from sewage produced by party animals whose bodies aren’t breaking it down, the BBC reports.
The biologists caught 13 Brazilian sharpnose sharks – surely the name’s just a coincidence – and found the drug in all of their muscles and livers at levels 100 times higher than in specimens collected in other studies of aquatic life. Polytechnic University of Leiria marine eco-toxicologist Sara Novais told Science magazine that the findings are “very important and potentially worrying.”