A nightmare unfolded on Oregon’s Highway 101 yesterday when a truck overturned and spilled slimy eels (hagfish) all over the road. The truck was transporting the slimy eels in a shipment that was ultimately destined for South Korea. Apparently, these monstrous looking creatures are a delicacy there and in other parts of the world.
I’ve eaten plenty of weird things over the years including pig’s brain and fermented shark in Iceland (Hákarl), but after seeing the gooey mess left on Oregon’s Highway 101 I’m not trying to eat hagfish at any point in my life. These creatures look straight up nasty:
To say that the highway cleanup crew had its hands full is the understatement of the century. There was a car completely covered in eel goop. These slimy eels were slithering all over the place. I can’t even imagine how you clean up this entire mess. I’m assuming that if you’re that cleanup crew you just hope for a shit ton of rain, and the scavengers to do the rest of the work overnight, right? Look at this nastiness:
OSP @OregonDOT & @LincolnCountySO on scene overturned #Slime #Eel truck Hwy101 MP131 closed. #Cleanup on Aisle 101 pic.twitter.com/Z9s9XbQ247
— Oregon State Police (@ORStatePolice) July 13, 2017
According to some tweets in Sarah Emerson‘s article over on VICE’s Motherboard, ‘slime eel’ is somewhat of a misnomer. Technically, hagfish are not actually eels. They’re just an eel-shaped fish:
By the way, they're not technically eels – they're hagfish… anyway, what a sad waste.
— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) July 13, 2017
https://twitter.com/DrAndrewThaler/status/885606905166561281
More photos and video of the slime eel massacre that took place yesterday in Oregon you can CLICK HERE to head on over to VICE’s Motherboard.