Elver fishermen in Maine face a nearly 18 percent cut in the number of glass eels they'll be allowed to catch next year. Regional fishery regulators voted to reduce the state's catch limit Monday, as part of an overall management plan for the American Eel Fishery. Maine elver fishermen say the cut is unncessary and will further harm their ability to make a living.
It's a line of work that suddenly became very lucrative in 2012 and 2013, when demand for glass eels on the Asian market caused prices in Maine to soar as high as $1,800 a pound. The sudden boom, though, caused a surge of illegal poaching in the fishery.
So last year, Maine introduced a swipe card system to combat fraud and set a catch limit of just under 12,000 pounds. Patrick Keliher, Maine's marine resources commissioner, has talked, often, about how successful the changes were. Illegal poaching all but disappeared and Maine elver fishermen ended up catching less than 10,000 pounds of glass eels.
"I wanted to see status quo with our fishery, with all the work we did," Keliher said.
But soon after making this observation, Keliher voted in favor of a management plan that will cut the catch limit for elvers in Maine by more than 2,000 pounds in 2015. Keliher and his colleagues on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission face a delicate balance: They have to find a way to protect the species - at a time when the federal government continues to consider listing it as threatened - and allow for a reasonable commercial catch.
Reasonable, though, was not how Maine fishermen described the plan approved by Keliher and most of his colleagues at the group's annual meeting in Connecticut.
"I have seen biblical runs of eels in the past three years, where I couldn't even believe it and wished to God I had a camera," says Julie Keene.
Keene fishes for glass eels Downeast, near her home in Trescott. Keene says it's unfair to be given an even smaller quota based on last year's total catch, especially as additional fishermen, who lost their licenses, plan to return to the water.
"There's no other work where we live at all, except for digging clams and picking periwinkles," Keene says. "And I'm too old to go do that anymore. And I'm just really scared. And I care deeply about the eels and the future."
Keene told the commissioners that they would be shocked to see how many eels are appearing,a nd urged them to send a federal observer to Maine.