Cocaine-taminated

There is something about two species of sharks that have been seen in the Salish Sea part of Puget Sound off Washington State, USA.

Oregon State University researchers said the broadnose sevengill and endangered soupfin shark are new inhabitants of the sea separating northwest Washington from Vancouver Island in Canada’s British Columbia.

Prior to 2021, only one sevengill shark had been confirmed in the Salish Sea, the marine scientists said, according to Phys Org.

While the scientists were doing field work on the sevengill research project, they caught one five-foot male soupfin shark.

“The appearance of soupfin sharks may be a result of climate change and changes in prey availability,” said graduate student Ethan Personius, one of the researchers who came up with the report on the study published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

Meanwhile, sharpnose sharks in the waters off the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil are not new to the area. What’s new is that narcotic substances have been found in their bodies, researchers at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation told CNN.

Traces of cocaine were found in both the liver and muscle tissue of 13 sharpnose sharks tested by the researchers, CNN reports.

Enrico Mendes Saggioro, an ecotoxicologist at the foundation, explained that cocaine pollutes the sea due to sewage discharges from humans who use the drug, as well as the illegal laboratories that produce it, according to CNN.

Increased consumption of the addictive drug and poor sewage treatment infrastructure have made for increased cocaine levels in the sea, the researchers added.