Erratic behavior observed in some sharks.
For so many years, US-bound drug smugglers have routinely trafficked massive amounts of cocaine from South and Central America and dumped it in the ocean, harming marine life there.
The drugs get dumped there both to give them to smugglers and to evade law enforcement, not because currents and tides push them to shore. The thousands of sharks off Florida were ingesting the dumped narcotics.
In "Cocaine Sharks," which is part of Discovery's Shark Week, Hird and University of Florida environmental scientist Tracy Fanara carry out a series of experiments to find out.
"The deeper story here is the way that chemicals, pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs are entering our waterways - entering our oceans - and what effect that they then could go on to have on these delicate ocean ecosystems," Hird told Live Science.
According to The New York Post, Hird and Fantana dove underwater and noticed some sharks acting strangely in the episode.A hammerhead shark, a species that typically shies away from humans, darted right at them and appeared to be swimming askew.
At 60 feet below the surface, a sandbar shark was seen swimming in tight circles, appearing fixated on an object that was not there, according to the show.Next, they tested how sharks reacted to the packages they dropped in the water which were similar in size and shape to cocaine bales.