June 30, 2014 — “Maine’s been making a lot of compromises,” said Mitchell Feigenbaum, co-founder of the American Eel Sustainability Association, an advocacy group for the fishery. He noted that a quota had been imposed and met this year, and said the association is willing to support the status quo because the state has been responsive to the issues facing the fishery.
Federal regulators will hear from Maine elver fishermen and state fisheries officials Monday in two public hearings that will help the government develop a plan to preserve one of Maine’s most valuable fisheries at a time of global concern over depleted eel populations.
The hearings in Hallowell and Brewer will be held by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which has the authority to set catch limits and establish other rules governing East Coast fisheries from Maine to Florida.
The panel will review its assessments of eel populations and harvests – frequently sore points among Maine’s elver fishermen. Commissioners also will provide an updated analysis of eel populations, with an eye toward fine-tuning management of the species at all stages of life, including glass (elvers), silver and yellow eels, said Kate Taylor, the commission’s senior fisheries management plan coordinator.
The commission’s plan for eel fisheries covers a wide range of potential management measures, “from maintaining the status quo to closure of the fishery and many options in between,” Taylor said.
The Maine Department of Marine Resources said preliminary figures show that fishermen harvested about 9,586 pounds of elvers in the season that ended May 31. That’s about half of recent years’ harvests. At the direction of the commission, DMR set a total harvest limit this year of 11,163 pounds, which was not reached. The agency also instituted a swipe-card system for fishermen and licensed dealers that tracked the harvest and sales and resulted in a 90 percent decline in illegal poaching, DMR said.
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald