Cocaine bear step aside. Enter sharks who are testing positive for illicit drugs in the Caribbean

Scientists have discovered traces of cocaine, caffeine and even painkillers in sharks prowling the waters surrounding the Bahamas.

The drugs were detected in three shark species, with researchers warning that the study’s findings warned of “emerging pollution risks in seemingly pristine ecosystems.”

The study, which was published in Environmental Pollution, marked the first time that cocaine and diclofenac had been detected in sharks native to the Bahamas. It was also the first time that caffeine and acetaminophen had been detected in any shark species worldwide.

Acetaminophen and diclofenac are the active ingredients in Tylenol and Voltaren, respectively.

“It’s mostly because people are going there, peeing in the water and dumping their sewage in the water,” Natascha Wosnick, one of the scientists who carried out the study, told Science News.

Much of the research was conducted in the waters surrounding the remote Eleuthera Island, and an inactive fish farm popular with divers, Wosnick said. Eighty-five sharks were captured in the region for the study.

According to the findings, 28 of the sea-dwelling creatures exhibited detectable levels of cocaine, caffeine, acetaminophen or diclofenac.

The drugs were detected in Caribbean Reef Sharks, Atlantic Nurse Sharks, and Lemon Sharks, although Blacktip Sharks and Tiger Sharks were also studied.

Researchers found changes in metabolic markers in sharks that showed signs of contaminated blood. Some of the sharks even appeared to have altered triglycerides, urea and lactate levels.

According to the study, diclofenac can be associated with kidney disease in animals. Cocaine and caffeine have been linked to hyperglycemia and lactate accumulation.

Wosnick told Science News that a young Lemon Shark, which tested positive for cocaine, was likely to have been exposed to the drug shortly before the study. That is because drugs persist longer in an animal’s muscles than in the blood.

Wosnick told the publication that the shark could have ingested a packet containing residues of cocaine.

“They bite things to investigate and end up exposed,” she said.

Wosnick, who is a biologist at Federal University of Paraná in Brazil, has previously detected traces of cocaine and rare earth minerals in sharks off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

Sharks in the Brazil-based study showed higher levels of cocaine, she told Science News. However, that result may have been obtained because the study tested muscle tissue rather than blood.

Wosnick told the publication that chemical pollution is often overlooked in the Bahamas in favor of other concerns, including oil spills and plastic pollution.

“Pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs are increasingly recognized as contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in marine environments, particularly in areas undergoing rapid urbanization and tourism-driven development,” researchers wrote in the Environmental Pollution study.