Are Sharks Eating Cocaine Dumped by Smugglers?

Sharks off the coast of Florida may be eating cocaine dumped into the ocean by drug traffickers, a marine-life expert has told Newsweek.

Upgrading the premise from local Floridian folklore to scientific study, the phenomenon has been explored as a highlight of Discovery Channel's ongoing Shark Week. Cocaine Sharks—which debuts on Wednesday—documents a number of experiments conducted off Key West to deduce whether the creatures have been feasting on the drug. Tom Hird, a shark expert who worked on the show, told Newsweek the scenario has "likely happened."

While the idea may seem bizarre on the surface, it isn't entirely far-fetched. Via a long-established passage, large quantities of illegal narcotics have made their way into the U.S. from Latin America, with Florida often being the landing point. Over the years, batches of plastic-wrapped cocaine have been lost or tossed overboard by traffickers attempting to evade law enforcement.

Such is the scale of the illicit operations that huge drug seizures have done little to quell the flow of cocaine, which has led to a recent boom in production amid growing international demand, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

In June, the U.S. Coast Guard announced that it had seized more than 14,153 pounds of cocaine—worth more than $186 million—from waters spanning between southern Florida and the Caribbean.

Given the quantity of what has been discovered, it seems logical to theorize that much has also evaded the authorities. The team behind Cocaine Sharks chose the span of water off Key West for their study due to a convergence of currents that make it an intersectional point for the plastic-wrapped bales to show up.

"It's an incredible sort of event," shark expert and marine biologist Tom "The Blowfish" Hird told Newsweek. "It's not one that could really happen pretty much anywhere else in the world, because you're talking about the stretch of water, Gulf of Mexico, you've got Florida, and then South and Central America, so very close. It's a perfect place for these drug runs to happen. And it's very, very clear that they happen very, very frequently."

Linking these drug runs to sharks, Hird said: "You've got this incredible firework explosion of a moment of a shark just patrolling its territory, going about his daily business. Then here's a new and unique item in the water. They don't have hands, they've only got mouths. So if they want to go up and see what this thing is, and give it a little nip to find out what's what, they're going to go up to it, bite it, and of course, they're going to get a faceful of cocaine.

"It sounds crazy. But I personally believe that this event has likely happened multiple times, because the probability of it happening is very, very high. The problem is being there in that moment in time to capture it."

The challenges, Hird explained, centered around the fact that not only would it be illegal to take possession of any of the cocaine in the ocean, but "as a marine biologist and a great shark lover as well, I wouldn't allow an animal to chew into a big bale of cocaine because it could affect it very, very badly.

"So we were looking for this lightning striking moment. And the only way that we could really kind of get to grips with what's happening in terms of the sharks and drug usage—or lack of—would be to look at the behavior of the animals in different scenarios. And so that's what we focused on."

The Experiments

In Cocaine Sharks, British scientist Hird teamed up with Florida-based environmental engineer Dr. Tracy Fanara to conduct experiments over the course of six days in an attempt to observe the sharks' behavior.

An initial dive saw them observe a range of aquatic life, including lemon sharks, reef sharks, and nurse sharks. While all seemed normal at first, a hammerhead shark was noted for swimming off-kilter. Unexpectedly, it wasn't scared off by the bubbles created by the investigating team. The sighting of a sandbar shark also sparked concern, as it was seen swimming in tight repetitive movements around nothing, which Hird cited as a possible sign of brain issues.

Another move by the scientists was to bait the sharks with models of swans alongside packages made to look like bales of cocaine. The team observed as a group of sharks headed straight for the fake cocaine bales and took bites.

The researchers also baited the sharks with wrapped bales of concentrated fish powder, which they explained would closely simulate the movement of cocaine if bitten into.

In the final experiment, the team drop wrapped bales of the concentrated fish powder into the ocean in an effort to discover whether the loud sound of the packages hitting the water would attract the sharks.

Mimicking Cocaine

Explaining why fishmeal was used to mimic cocaine in the experiment, Hird told Newsweek that the composition of sharks' brains played a role in the decision.

"For all we know, cocaine might act as an anesthetic to sharks, or might act as a sedative—we don't know. But if it does act to increase their behavior, then I said, 'OK, well [maybe] this is going get their brains going.' The vast majority of the shark's brain is given over to the sense of taste, sense of smell. So how can we fire off as many neurons for that part of the brain as possible? Well, to do that, we use the concentrated powder."

Hird said that more studies are needed for a definitive overview of how cocaine may have affected sharks, part of which could involve taking "blood samples and tissue samples, post mortem, of large oceanic predators—not just sharks, but swordfish, grouper, that kind of thing. Find out how far up the food chain it's gone."

Although studies have so far been limited, Hird added that in the U.K., a study was conducted in the River Thames, where it was found that shrimp at several sampling points contained cocaine.

Environmental Concerns

While Cocaine Sharks makes for a punchy episode title and conjures images of a low-budget 1960s disaster movie, Hird said that the team's investigation opens the conversation on a larger issue that much of the world is unwittingly contributing to.

"What we've done here is really scratched the surface on this incredibly unique phenomenon that can only really happen to the Florida Keys," he said. "It can only really happen in this area of the world because of the topography and all the drug smuggling that's going on. But in that case, it's more of a poster child to the bigger issue that we need to be considering as conservationists.

"Pharmaceuticals that we are using—both illegal and legal—are passing through our bodies and going down our waterways via our wastewater and entering our seas. It might not be that one big firework moment of a cocaine bail hitting the water, but it's this long, slow, constant flow into our seas, where these chemicals start to build up.

"And it doesn't matter if it's aspirin, an antidepressant or cocaine. If it goes through us, it's going to make its way back to the seas. Hopefully, that's going to be the takeaway, that people see that and say, 'Wow, what a crazy thing that could happen.' The studies just haven't been done."

In Cocaine Sharks' concluding moments, Hird surmised: "People rely on the oceans for their livelihood, people rely on the oceans for their food. This is not the place we should be dumping our drugs."

Shark Week, which began airing on July 23, will continue to be broadcast for the remainder of the week. Cocaine Sharks is scheduled to air on July 26 at 10 p.m. ET.