Woman Finds Live Eels Squirming Around Mall Bathroom

A woman who walked into a shopping mall bathroom discovered a pair of live eels that later wound up in a nearby aquarium.

The woman, identified as Yvonne De Jong on her Instagram, posted a video of the eels moving about in a bathroom at the Scarborough Town Centre Mall in Toronto Sunday evening.

"Came out of the bathroom stall to 2 #eels #squirmingonthefloor !! #WTF #scarboroughtowncentre #justmyluck #eelsgivemethecreeps #videosTO," she captioned the footage.

The mall’s marketing director Jai Lee confirmed that a customer encountered the two eels and then filed a complaint to mall security. Lee said she believed the incident was not a prank and that someone probably bought the live eels from a fish market in the mall.

"They are sold in markets, so somebody brought them in in a bag and I guess (they) got out of the bag," Lee told CBC News. "A customer found them and called our security, and our security handled it beautifully — very, very quickly."

Mall security arrived on the scene and scooped up the slithery creatures, but not without a fight. A security guard recaptured one of the eels after it hopped out of the bag, Lee said. Big Al’s Aquarium, located near the mall offered to take in the eels until animal control showed up.

"Two eels were taken to a local aquarium so that they could be put into water right away," she said. "We just wanted to make sure that they were out of our property and (put) into a safe environment."

Lee credited the quick resolution of the situation to the mall’s security guards.

"They reacted so quickly that no one was affected," she said. "(The Scarborough Town Centre) is a city of its own, right? When you have this many people a day, it is a city. But it’s always been totally safe. They came in and took care of it right away. Because that’s their job. To make sure our customers feel comfortable."

Some eels are known to be predatory creatures who typically dwell in shallow parts of the ocean. Eels are naturally nocturnal and usually burrow into the sand, underneath rocks on the ocean’s floor.

Humans can consume freshwater and marine eels. They are a part of Japanese cuisine, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and the Netherlands.