Shark Week: Dead Shark Found in NYC Subway Car

Talk about a fishy situation

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In what looks like a teaser for a sequel to Sharknado — or at least a Shark Week marketing stunt — a dead shark was found on a New York City subway train early Wednesday morning.

A passenger who was in the same car as the shark told Gothamist that the “stench” signaled to her that something “fishy” was going on. Photos obtained by the New York City news website also show a passenger posing with the creature. Another shows the dead animal with a cigarette in its mouth and flanked by a Metro Card and a can of Red Bull (there are already Twitter parodies). NYU student Brandon Sanchez, 20, uploaded a photo to Instagram of the shark under a row of seats:

Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) confirmed to The Huffington Post and Gothamist that the conductor of a Queens-bound N train was alerted to the situation around 12:30 a.m. The train was evacuated at the Queensboro Plaza stop. When it got to the end of the line, the conductor put the creature in a garbage bag and put it in the trash. Once it was determined that the car was clean enough, the train went back into service. MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz told The Huffington Post, “Looks like a good promo for Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.”

The Discovery Channel, however, has denied that the incident had anything to do with its TV series. In an email to MetroLaurie Goldberg, executive vice-president of PR for the Discovery Channel, wrote: “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.”

In other fishy news gone viral, a 5-foot-long dead shark was also found last week in front of the entrance to the Sea Dog Brew Pub on Nantucket.

This article was updated to reflect The Discovery Channel’s statement and Twitter reaction to the dead shark.

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