AUGUSTA, Maine — May 8, 2015 — The Department of Marine Resources said the Passamaquoddies are again violating the rules that were created to restrict the amount of eels that can be caught.
The state said the tribe is putting the entire, multi-million dollar fishery at risk with their actions.
This isn’t the first time they’ve had this kind of face-off. The state and the Passamaquoddies had a similar confrontation over the elver fishing rules two years ago, and that helped lead to creation of a catch quota system. The quotas were put in place to satisfy federal fisheries regulators, and persuade them to let Maine continue to allow elver fishing.
The Department of Marine Resources said Maine is the only state on the east coast that has a meaningful elver season. But the Department said the latest moves by the tribe are aimed at bypassing the quotas, that could lead to federal regulators banning any future fishing.
The Department said the Passamaquoddies are allowing more people to have fishing licenses than they were supposed to, and letting them fish with fixed nets, called Fyke nets, which catch more eels than hand held nets. The tribe has insisted it has the right to control how many people fish and how they fish, and has resisted the state’s controls.