Shark Head Washes Up From River In Ohio, And We Might Know How It Got There

Cue the Jaws theme song…

On Monday (March 22), Haley Weidner took a walk along the river in Groveside Park near Piqua.

During the walk, she veered from the bike trail, getting closer to the Great Miami River, WHIO-TV detailed.

Soon, she noticed a foul smell.

“I just looked at it and walked past, and then I double took,” Weidner said in a CNN Newsource story shared by Local 21 News. “I'm like ‘oh, somebody's messing with me — they got me good.’”

Nope. It wasn’t a prank.

It was a shark.

More specifically, it was just the shark’s head.

Weidner even poked it with her foot, recalling the “rubber” feeling and the stench.

She contacted wildlife officials (and posted the unusual sighting to social media, of course), and officials initially suggested that someone likely brought the shark’s head to Ohio from Florida, according to reports.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources said in a statement to WHIO-TV:

“[The shark’s head] looks as though someone discarded it there ... We have seen situations like this before with people discarding shark parts of carcasses after fishing trips to the ocean.”

But the bizarre story didn't end there.

On Wednesday evening (March 24), WHIO-TV reported that another Ohio woman said in emails and comments on social media that she bought the shark head at Jungle Jim’s International Market to use for fishing. Then, she gave it “to the fish to eat,” she said in an email to an Ohio news desk.

A screenshot of the email shows that the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, explained that “high waters must have washed it back up.” She said the shark’s head “was 11 pounds and shouldn’t have been able to resurface.”

She “did not mean to cause such a big scare,” her email reads.

In case you're wondering, Jungle Jim’s apparently DOES sell sharks, WHIO-TV confirmed.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources also urged people “to never place anything in the waterway,” including fish. The agency is investigating a potential “stream litter” case, WHIO reports.

Photo: Getty Images


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