Just a few months after cocaine was detected in the bodies of sharks off the coast of South America, research has found fentanyl and other drugs in dozens of dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, adding to a growing record of pharmaceuticals infiltrating our marine environments.

Of 89 dolphins tested in the Gulf of Mexico, 30 contained some form of pharmaceutical—and 18 had fentanyl in their blubber.

For there to be drugs in a dolphin means that the drugs are either in the water, or they’re in the prey that they’re consuming,” a researcher told a Texas news outlet.

For years, U.S. authorities and fishermen have complained about illegal fishing for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, and now it's clear who is behind the lucrative trade: a Mexican drug cartel.

The team found fentanyl, as well as the drugs carisoprodol and meprobamate, both used pharmaceutically for pain relief, in 30 of the 89 dolphins they studied, which were recovered from sites in Texas and Mississippi.

The opioid fentanyl has made its presence known in an unexpected place — the blubber of dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico. In a concerning study, researchers detected fentanyl in 27% of analyzed dolphins,