Slippery Beast
A True Crime Natural History, with Eels
by Ellen Ruppel Shell
What is it about eels? Depending on who you ask, they are a pest, a fascination, a threat, or a pot of gold. They were once among the world’s most abundant freshwater fish, but in recent decades their numbers have plummeted. Because eels—whether smoked or as unagi—are another thing: delicious.
In Slippery Beast, journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell travels in the world of “eel people,” pursuing a burgeoning fascination with this mysterious and highly coveted creature. Despite centuries of study by celebrated thinkers, from Aristotle to Leeuwenhoek to a young Sigmund Freud, much about eels remains unknown, including exactly how eels beget other eels. As a result, infant eels are unbelievably valuable. A pound of the tiny, translucent, bug-eyed “elvers” caught in the cold, clear waters of Maine can command $3,000 or more on the black market. Illegal trade in eels is an international scandal measured in billions of dollars every year.
Ruppel Shell follows the elusive eel from Maine to Norway to the Sargasso Sea, stalking riversides, fishing holes, laboratories, restaurants, courtrooms, sacred tribal lands, and America’s first commercial eel “family farm,” which just might upend the ruthless international eel cartels and boost a struggling state.
HC
Canoe Trips
Canoe Trips
