May 3, 2017 — With a month still left in the fishing season that ends May 31, the price of elvers (technically, glass eels) is on the rise, but many fishermen have already filled their annual quota and are dumping juvenile eels back into the water.
According to Ellsworth elver buyer Bill Sheldon, there are still plenty of elvers in the water, but that’s not doing the fishermen any good. Some harvesters with just 1 or 2 pounds of quota remaining have had to toss 15 to 20 pounds of elvers overboard to avoid overfishing their allocations.
“It’s a shame when you consider the economics of Hancock and Washington counties,” Sheldon said on Monday.
Maine elver harvesters are limited to a total annual landings quota of 9,616 pounds set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. According to preliminary figures released by the Department of Marine Resources, as of 6 p.m. on Sunday, dealers had reported buying just under 7,218.4 pounds from licensed harvesters, approximately 75 percent of the annual limit. With 31 days still to go in the season, only 2,397.6 pounds of quota remained available to harvest.
On Monday, Sheldon said that after falling to $1,150 per pound, the going price for elvers was $1,300 and going up.
The price “seems to have bottomed out,” Sheldon said. “My expectation is that it will increase slowly to the end of the season.”
According to DMR, the average price harvesters have received for elvers so far this season is $1,311. A few years ago, the price reached $2,600 per pound.