May 6, 2014 — Soaring demand in recent years for young American eels, which are often shipped to Asian markets to be raised for food, has generated fresh concern about the health of the species along the East Coast.
Last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state investigators searched several locations from Maine to South Carolina as part of an investigation into the illegal eel trade, a law-enforcement official said. Young eels—known as elvers, or glass eels, because of their transparent appearance—are transported overseas to mature in aquaculture ponds.
Operation Broken Glass is examining possible violations of federal export law, said Col. Joe Fessenden, chief of marine law enforcement at Maine's Department of Marine Resources.
"We're talking millions of dollars of cash in some cases that is being exchanged for glass eels," he said.
Elver fishing is legal only in Maine and South Carolina. Laws are broken when the young eels are harvested in other states. This year, amid pressure from other states, Maine instituted an elver quota.
Though alleged poachers have been arrested in several East Coast states since last year, officials say the current probe is the first joint crackdown on illegal glass-eel harvesting since the late 1990s.
Demand is high because unlike salmon, eels won't reproduce in captivity. Glass eels, each a few inches long, are used to replenish aquaculture operations.
Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal