SURRY, Maine — April 8, 2013 — Maine Marine Patrol Officer Brent Chasse succinctly sums up the challenges facing him and his fellow conservation officers during the 10-week elver season, which began in late March and stretches until May 31.
“Money brings greed,” Chasse said before starting an evening patrol of popular elver-fishing spots in Ellsworth, Surry and Orland on Friday night. “There was a time when if you made a couple hundred dollars a night, it was a good night. Now, you might make $100,000 in a night if you get really lucky and know what you’re doing.”
Two years ago, the price of elvers, or glass eels, was about $185 a pound. Last year, the price topped $2,000 a pound, and on Friday night, one optimistic veteran elver fisherman said he expected the price to rise again, perhaps to $3,000 a pound, within a week or so.
With the lure of a potentially huge payday, and the reality that there are fewer than 40 marine patrol officers checking hundreds of fishermen and countless tidal waters across the state each night, some choose to ignore the law and try their luck by fishing illegally.
The state has limited the number of elver fishing licenses it issues in order to comply with management rules imposed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. That limit is 774 licenses, and recent controversy has revolved around the Passamaquoddy Tribe’s issuance of 575 licenses of their own, which state officials say have put Maine out of compliance with existing regulations.
Even if a poacher is caught, Chasse said that many continue fishing, or indicate that they’ve been fishing illegally for quite some time.
“Quite often there is [an attitude] that [getting caught] is just a cost of doing business for these guys,” Chasse said. “Last year I wrote a guy four different summons, four different violations in one morning. … He had roughly $4,500 in fines, right there. I wrote him the four summons and I said, ‘Is it safe to assume that you’re still ahead in this game?’ He just looked at me and smiled.”
Later that season, Chasse said he caught up with the fisherman again — and more fines were added to his ledger.
“I’m not sure by the end of the season that he was still ahead,” Chasse said.
As marine patrol officers and legal elver fishermen will say, there are plenty of people skulking around in the dark, eager to exploit the resource or those involved in the industry.
Chasse said the marine patrol received word last year that members of MS-13, a notorious street gang that has been targeted by federal and international authorities, was intending to target elver buyers.
Chasse explained that the buyers typically conduct a cash business, and that most of the buying takes place late at night. The fact that some buyers might have as much as $250,000 in cash on hand did not go unnoticed by the international gang, and the marine patrol and elver fishermen took the reports seriously.
On Friday night, elver fishermen in Orland were still talking about the MS-13 reports, and quizzed Chasse, eager to hear if he’d heard any fresh news about a new threat.
Chasse shook his head, but admitted he wouldn’t be surprised if reports began again as the season picked up pace after a cold, slow beginning.
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