14 DAY TRIAL // This is perhaps the most disgusting creature of the sea: the hagfish. It uses just the right weapon to turn your stomach upside-down: slime. It is not even a fish, but one of the oldest vertebrates (older than 300 million years), lacking any jaw (so it cannot even bite) and with just one nostril, but displaying rows of teeth on its tongue, which it uses to enter into the innards of rotting fish through any orifice to feed.
Also called slime eel, the 14-18 inch (34-45 cm) creature looks like a combination between an eel and a worm. And as if that was not enough, when agitated, hagfish secrete a protein that in contact with the water produces the stinky and sticky thick mucus.
"A single animal can turn a five-gallon bucket of seawater into a pool of goo in a matter of moments," said Eddie Kisfaludy of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
The slime protects the hagfish both against predators and other hagfish. Despite this, cooked and served on a plate, it is regarded as a powerful aphrodisiac in South Korea. The overseas appetite for the hagfish has opened a business opportunity for fishermen confronted with tough restrictions on capturing other fish species, as the species is not consumed in most of other areas than Eastern Asia.
California's annual catch boomed from practically nothing to 150,000 pounds (67 tonnes) in the past four years, while Oregon and Washington state reported around 1 million pounds (450 tonnes) of hagfish capture for 2006.
Hagfish are blind and inhabit water below 1,000 ft (330 m). "The average person would be disgusted just by looking at them. The product is difficult to deal with and handle - it's a little eel that once it gets stressed it excretes this slime." said Mark Crossland, a state Fish and Game warden.
In Korea, older men eat it as a salted appetizer broiled in sesame oil, and accompanied by a shot of liquor. "The fish sells for as much as $20 a pound in South Korea, which consumes 9 million pounds a year. There's a myth there that it's an aphrodisiac. It gives you energy like Viagra. It's like oysters here.", said Peter Chu, a seafood exporter in Eureka, California.
"It is relatively inexpensive to get into hagfishing. They are caught in five-gallon barrels fitted with trap doors and baited with rotting fish." said fisherman Mark Tognazzini, who used to catch hagfish in the early 1990s.
In April, a fishing boat near Morro Bay (California) was carrying over 15,000 pounds (6.7 tones), or about 45,000 hagfish, on the way to be loaded on jumbo jets live towards South Korea. This was a case of fishing without permits and oversized traps (as large as wine barrels).
This species is eaten by whales, seabirds and seals and it is in no immediate danger, but overexploitation could threaten the species, as it is a slow reproducer. "They are an important part of the marine ecosystem whose job is to clean up the ocean floor. The thing is, they're not cute - they don't hit people's hearts," said Tognazzini.
