Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, with Eels
Language: English
Published by Abrams, 2024
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.World of Books (was SecondSale)
AbeBooks seller since December 20, 2007
Condition: Used - Good
£ 4.37
Quantity: 3 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
"It?s part natural history, part true crime, and buckets of slippery, slimy fun. You won?t be able to put it down."?The Nature Conservancy"Revelatory?and sometimes shocking. Slippery Beast brings exhaustive research and interviews to bear on a subject of surprising richness."?Wall Street JournalEllen Ruppel Shell?s Slippery Beast is a fascinating account of a deeply mysterious creature?the eel?a thrilling saga of true crime, natural history, travel, and big business. What is it about eels? Depending on who you ask, they are a pest, a fascination, a threat, a pot of gold. What they are not is predictable. Eels emerged some 200 million years ago, weathered mass extinctions and continental shifts, and were once among the world?s most abundant freshwater fish. But since the 1970s, their numbers have plummeted. Because eels?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. Eels cannot be bred reliably in captivity, and as a result, infant eels are unbelievably valuable. A pound of the tiny, translucent, bug-eyed ?elvers? caught in the cold fresh 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. In Maine, federal investigators have risked their lives to bust poaching rings, including the notorious half-decade-long ?Operation Broken Glass.? Ruppel Shell follows the elusive eel from Maine to the Sargasso Sea and back, stalking riversides, fishing holes, laboratories, restaurants, courtrooms, and America?s first commercial eel ?family farm,? which just might upend the international market and save a state. This is an enthralling, globe-spanning look at an animal that you may never come to love, but which will never fail to astonish you, a miraculous creature that tells more about us than we can ever know about it.…
Seller Inventory # 00098245137
- Title
- Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, with Eels
- Author
- Ellen Ruppel Shell
- Publisher
- Abrams
- Publication year
- 2024
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- Hardback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 141976585X
- ISBN 13
- 9781419765858
"Revelatory―and sometimes shocking... Slippery Beast brings exhaustive research and interviews to bear on a subject of surprising richness."―Wall Street Journal
Ellen Ruppel Shell’s Slippery Beast is a fascinating account of a deeply mysterious creature―the eel―a thrilling saga of true crime, natural history, travel, and big business.
What is it about eels? Depending on who you ask, they are a pest, a fascination, a threat, a pot of gold. What they are not is predictable. Eels emerged some 200 million years ago, weathered mass extinctions and continental shifts, and were once among the world’s most abundant freshwater fish. But since the 1970s, their numbers have plummeted. Because eels―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. Eels cannot be bred reliably in captivity, and as a result, infant eels are unbelievably valuable. A pound of the tiny, translucent, bug-eyed “elvers” caught in the cold fresh 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. In Maine, federal investigators have risked their lives to bust poaching rings, including the notorious half-decade-long “Operation Broken Glass.”
Ruppel Shell follows the elusive eel from Maine to the Sargasso Sea and back, stalking riversides, fishing holes, laboratories, restaurants, courtrooms, and America’s first commercial eel “family farm,” which just might upend the international market and save a state. This is an enthralling, globe-spanning look at an animal that you may never come to love, but which will never fail to astonish you, a miraculous creature that tells more about us than we can ever know about it.
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About the Author
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
World of Books (was SecondSale)
Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since December 20, 2007
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Founded in 2002, World of Books is a leading online destination for buying and selling both preloved and new books, committed to making sustainable reading accessible to all. With a mission to help people read more and waste less, World of Books offers a huge range of affordable, high-quality books — giving both new and preloved titles a second life. The company also operates World of Books – Sell Your Books, an easy-to-use platform that allows customers to trade in unwanted books for cash, helping to keep books in circulation while promoting sustainability. As a Certified B Corp, World of Books is driven by a vision to become the world’s largest and most sustainable dedicated online bookstore. The company measures its success through the positive environmental impact it creates, the value it provides to customers, and its ability to operate profitably while supporting its sustainable mission …
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