TAKING THE BAIT: First there was 'cocaine bear' and now... sharks. Why scientists think thousands of sharks are ingesting the drug:
Collegiate surfer Chris Pospisil is thanking his friend for saving his life after he was attacked by a shark at Florida's New Smyrna Beach.may have ingested bales of cocaine left in the water by drug smugglers attempting to get their product into the United States.
"The deeper story here is the way that chemicals, pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs are entering our waterways — entering our oceans — and what effect that they then could go on to have on these delicate ocean ecosystems," Hird, known as"The Blowfish," told Live Science.from South and Central America have washed ashore on Florida beaches for decades. The huge bales are often dumped at sea and picked up by drug smugglers on boats.
Hird set off to the Florida Keys to investigate where fishermen told tales of drug-addled sharks consuming the bales. During one dive, they found a hammerhead shark behaving strangely. Coast Guard Cutter Tampa crew offloads approximately 5,500 pounds of cocaine, worth an estimated $94.6 million, at Base Miami Beach, Miami, Florida."I think we have got a potential scenario of what it may look like if you gave sharks cocaine," Hird said in the film."We gave them what I think is the next best thing. [It] set [their] brains aflame. It was crazy."
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