Most of the hides produced on the US West Coast are shipped to Asia for converting into leather. We usually carried 10 to 20 containers (the're 40' not 41' by the way) of salted hides on the container ships I sailed out of Seattle.
Winter wasn't too bad but summer they had flies.
The hide shippers were supposed to let the hides drain before shipping but not all of them did, and we had the juice running down the deck from some.
We were having corrosion problems because of the salt juice but were told the company made a lot of money from shipping hides. I understand they improved the hide boxes so as not to leak.
We shipped live snakes and eels inter Asia regularly too.
Mmmmmmm. Tasty! Last time I was over in Hong Kong, they were having a scare about Malachite Green tainted eels from the mainland.....something about carcinogens. Who knew snakes and eels could be bad for you?
My wife and I once hauled a tractor trailer load of duck's feet, and bills for shipment to Asia. We moved them from IN to the ports in San Fran, CA. We heard they deep fry them and eat them like popcorn over there.
Learn something new every day.