Marine experts warn of the possibility that sharks off the coast of Florida are feeding on drugs released into the sea. traffickers trying to smuggle them into the US. These animals exhibited bizarre behavior, suggesting whether the behavior might be due to cocaine use.
Recent events are being investigated by marine biologist Tom Hurd and environmental engineer Tracey Fanara. In accordance with The keeperthe entire process of the investigation will be shown in a documentary called Tubarões Cocaína.
“This is a catchy headline to shed light on a real problem: everything we use, everything we produce, everything we put into our bodies, ends up in our wastewater and natural bodies of water, and the aquatic life on which our survival depends is exposed to this,” Tracey Phanara said.
During a six-day study at sea in the Florida Keys, researchers observed a hammerhead shark, a species that usually swims away from humans, heading straight for divers, moving in strange ways. They also watched the whitetip shark swim in circles, focusing on an imaginary object.
Experiments have been done, such as dropping mannequin packs into the water, and many sharks have been bitten. Also thrown overboard were bait balls containing highly concentrated fish powder to mimic cocaine. The effect, according to scientists, was similar to the effect of catnip on cats. “It’s the next best thing [e] it set their brains on fire. It was crazy,” Tom Heard says on the show. The keeper.
According to an environmental engineer, the Florida Keys was chosen as the location for the analysis because the convergence of ocean currents made the region “predominant” for floating bags of cocaine. Florida serves as a transit point for large quantities of drugs entering the US from South America, and plastic-wrapped bags of cocaine are often lost or thrown overboard by traffickers.
Last month, the US Coast Guard announced that it had seized more than $186 million worth of illegal drugs in Caribbean and South Florida waters. But these seizures have little effect on an industry operating at record levels.
“When we were filming in the Keys, the cocaine bags were washed out twice a week, which means it’s a very big problem,” Tracey Phanara said, adding that based on preliminary experiments, it’s impossible to determine how much cocaine the sharks actually ingested.
“At the end of every research publication, you read ‘more research needs to be done,’ and that’s clearly the conclusion that’s being drawn,” the researcher said, referring to previous in-depth studies of contaminated inland waterways that suggested the fish were addicted to methamphetamines.
In the coming months, Tracey Fanara plans to team up with other Florida marine scientists to collect blood samples from some sharks to assess cocaine levels.
It is important for an environmental engineer that people understand the threat that water pollution poses to marine life and the Earth’s fragile ocean ecosystem.
“We are experiencing the sixth mass extinction, and the more chemicals we introduce, the more radical changes we make, the more dangerous the situation becomes,” the researcher warned.
Author: morning Post
Source: CM Jornal
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