Dead shark found on subway train confuses commuters

New Yorkers are trying to figure out how a dead shark ended up on a New York City subway train.

After multiple users posted photos on the social network Instagram of what appeared to be a dead shark on New York’s Queens-bound N train, one person who had seen the shark wrote to the website Gothamist explaining the strange occurrence.

The passenger, Mary M., said she boarded the train and smelled something “fishy.”

“I look down to the end of the car to see a dead shark on the floor,” Mary said. “I think I stood there for a good minute just staring, thinking ‘Is this for real?! Oh come ON, NYC!’”

She said a fellow passenger told her he had been riding the subway for 15 years and the shark was the weirdest thing he had ever seen.

The train’s conductor asked passengers to leave the car. When the train reached the end of the line, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority employee put the shark in a garbage bag and threw it away, according to ABC 7.

MTA officials said they were aware of the photos of the shark, but have “better things to do” than to figure out where the shark came from. MTA’s response on Twitter was similarly glib.

“Latest on the shark on the N train: unconfirmed reports that the shark was headed home after a night of partying in Coney Island,” MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz tweeted on Wednesday.

Shortly after the story was first posted, a parody Twitter account was created with the handle @NYCSubwayShark.

“Momma used to tell me there were a million fish in the sea, but she never knew her baby would be as famous as me. #SharkCuplet,” one tweet from the account said.

Concerned by questions raised on social media about whether the shark was part of a PR stunt by the Discovery Channel to promote the ongoing Shark Week, the channel released a statement Wednesday afternoon.

“Shark Week is all about conservation, so it deeply saddens us that someone would think that this was funny or in any way connected to our celebration of sharks, ” Laurie Goldberg, executive vice-president of PR for the Discovery Channel, said in an email to Metro.