Cocaine-Fueled Wild Salmon Swam Twice as Far as Sober Ones
Cocaine pollution can affect the behavior of fish—altering, for example, the way Atlantic salmon move through their environment, prompting them to swim farther and disperse over a wider area. So finds a recent study by a research team coordinated by Griffith University, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, the Zoological Society of London, and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and published in the journal Current Biology. The findings provide the first evidence that the effects of cocaine contamination on fish behavior occur not only under laboratory conditions but also in the wild, where animals are exposed to much more complex environmental conditions. Cocaine and its metabolites have been detected with increasing frequency in rivers and lakes around the world, entering waterways primarily through wastewater treatment systems. Although previous research has shown that cocaine pollution can affect animal behavior, this evidence was limited to laboratory conditions. A 2024 study by the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Brazil showed that even sharks are exposed to cocaine, but little is known about its effects on animals in …
