Dead Shark Found On Queens-Bound N Train
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the subway.
A dead shark was found on a Queens-bound N train around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said.
The conductor isolated the car and the train continued on to Ditmars Boulevard, where a supervisor put the shark in a garbage bag and threw it out in the trash, the MTA said.
Dead Shark Found On Queens-Bound N Train
The train car was then put back into service.
Some people posted pictures of the shark on Instagram.
"Gotta love NYC...casual dead shark on the subway...#NYC," Brandon Sanchez wrote.
Sanchez told 1010 WINS he noticed the shark under the seat of an empty car while getting on the train at the Canal Street stop.
"My theory is that it's someone playing a practical joke," Sanchez told 1010 WINS. "It seemed like whoever brought the shark on the train already bought it dead. I don't think anyone killed the shark."
Isvett Verde posted a picture and later commented, "it is shark week after all," referencing Discovery network's summer programming special. She told 1010 WINS' Holli Haerr she was briefly shocked by the sight that accompanied the fishy odor in the empty train car.
"I was just like, is this a sh... like, is this really happening? Is there a shark, a dead on the train? Of course there's a dead shark on the train," she said.
In an email to CBSNewYork.com, Verde said she boarded the train at the Eighth Street stop and noticed that it smelled "extremely fishy."
"I assumed that's why it was empty until I looked down and saw that poor straphanging dead shark," Verde said. "I thought I'd seen it all, but even that was a bit much."
Another straphanger who took photos did not seem the slightest bit taken aback by the dead shark. Some photos supplied to Gothamist by a subway rider Juan D. Cano showed the dead shark turned right-side up, and dressed up with a MetroCard under one fin, a cigarette under its chin, and an open can of Red Bull at its side.
The shark also became the subject of a satirical Twitter account Wednesday afternoon.
"People keep asking, 'Will you be on Shark Week?' I AM SHARK WEEK," one @NYCSubwayShark tweet said.
"Spike Lee just asked me if I wanted to star in his new joint 'Sharks on a Train.' It's tempting, but I don't want to be typecast," another tweet said.
While it is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, the cable station was quick to stop any rumors that there was a connection.
"Shark Week is about conservation, so it deeply saddens us that someone would thing that this was funny or in any way connect to our celebration of sharks," the Discovery Channel said in a statement.
It remained unclear Wednesday night how the shark died or how it got on the train.
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