PORTLAND, Maine - The group that manages commercial fisheries in the Atlantic states is recommending a nearly 2,000-pound cut in the catch limit for glass eels in Maine. Under the suggested rule change, fishermen would be able to catch a total of 9,688 pounds of elvers in each of the next three seasons. That was the total number of glass eels hauled in this past season, despite a 2014 quota of over 11,000 pounds.
Prices paid for glass eels have soared in recent years, due to demand in Asian markets, where the species is a delicacy. The group representing Maine elver fishermen say any cut in the catch limit is uncalled for.
Darryl Young founded the Maine Elver Fishermen Association. In 2014, Young says Maine's Native American tribes were allocated 22 percent of the total quota of 11,479 pounds of elvers. "The tribes didn't fill their quotas," Young says. "They were quite a ways off because they allocated more than what they could actually catch."
Maine implemented a swipe card system this past season to track elver landings and cut down on fraud in the fishery. Young says some fishermen ended up leaving up to a half a pound of elvers in the water, out of fear that they would exceed their individual quotas and lose their licenses in 2015. "Some were retirees that had a license," he says. "They could only make so much money, and they quit when they made that amount of money."
Young says members of his group will attend the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission meeting next week in Mystic, Connecticut, where they'll ask that the catch limit remain as is. In an e-mail, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Marine Resources says the state, too, would prefer to see the quota remain the same, due in large part to the success of new methods for managing the glass eels fishery, like the swipe card system.
"These are just recommendations," says Kate Taylor, who is with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, where she works on oversight of the American eel fishery. Taylor says regulators are trying to come up with "an appropriate, precautionary quota. They took into consideration where the quota was set this year, what the harvest was, and, of course, the socioeconomic importance of the fishery in Maine."
After a final vote on the recommendations next week, the focus will then shift to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Next year, regulators at the federal agency will decide whether to list the American eel as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.