Scientists have yet to fully study how marine animals respond to drugs, but they may soon find out, as a group of marine biologists making a documentary about sharks have seen that they eat narcotics washed into the sea from the coast of Florida.

Tom Hirda marine expert from the documentary Discovery Channel, revealed that while the researchers were gathering information for their documentary, they noticed strange behavior from the sharks. A package belonging to the scientists, packaged similarly to packages of cocaine often carried by smugglers, fell into the sea and sharks jumped and bit it.

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The marine biologist and another of his colleagues went into the sea to record the sharks, hoping the animals would move away from them as they always do. But on that occasion, they approached people, which they described as “unusual behaviour”..

Hird said the strange behavior could have been caused by an injury or “perhaps a chemical imbalance.” And then they tested their theory that sharks consumed the narcotics thrown into the sea.

Investigators designed packages identical to cocaine packages and dropped them into the sea from a helicopter. Immediately, sharks appeared and swam towards the objectsthey were bitten and one of them grabbed a package and took it with him.

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“The deeper story here is how chemicals, pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs enter our waterways, enter our oceans, and what effect they can have on these fragile ocean ecosystemsHird said living science.

But there’s still no way to know how sharks react to cocaine, because marine animals have a different way of reacting to these chemicals.

“The other thing we might find is actually this long stream, this stream of drugs: caffeine, lidocaine, cocaine, amphetamines, antidepressants, birth control: this long, slow movement of it from the cities to the [océano] It’s starting to affect these animals,” the marine biologist added.

Drugs off the coast of Florida are nothing new to authorities. Last October, Chief Constable Walter Slosar of the Miami Sector of the Border Patrol, which is responsible for managing 2,000 miles of the coastal border, estimated the drugs seized to be worth $150,000.