Saving Seafood

Elver prices soar to new heights amid shortage, Asian demand

March 30, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — The price of baby eels in Maine is soaring to record highs at the start of a season in which buyers expect to pay more for the valuable fish.

Baby eels, called elvers, are an important part of the worldwide Japanese food trade. Maine fishermen harvest them from rivers and streams so they can be sold as seed stock to Asian aquaculture companies.

The average price per pound to fishermen through the first week of the 2018 season was $2,608, the Maine Department of Marine Resources said Friday. The most elvers have ever sold for in a full season was $2,172 per pound, in 2015, and they sold for a little more than $1,300 per pound last year.

Fishermen in Maine, which has the only significant elver fishery in the U.S., are poised for high prices this year because of a poor harvest in Asia. The early part of Maine’s season has been held back somewhat by bad weather, but harvesters are looking forward to a good year, said Darrell Young, co-director of the Maine Elver Fishermen Association.

“Hoping that when there’s eels around, they fight over them,” Young said. “When mother nature decides she wants to turn around.”

The season opened March 22, and fishermen had about 95 percent of their 9,688 pound quota remaining through Thursday evening, the state marine agency reported on its website. The season runs until June 7, and the first week was somewhat slow, which fishermen expected at the end of a cold winter.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

 

Maine: Early elver landings slow

March 28, 2018 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Forecasters predicting a slow but lucrative start to the elver fishing season were right on both counts.

The season got under way last Thursday and, by the close of business on Tuesday, the Department of Marine Resources said dealers reported buying 114.95 pounds of elvers and paying harvesters $315,789 for their landings — an average price of $2,747 per pound.

Darrell Young, a longtime elver harvester who established a buying station in Ellsworth this year, said the price opened high last week and has fluctuated between $2,600 and $2,900 per pound.

“I think the price will stay high,” Young said Tuesday.

The season, and the market, still has a long way to go.

Maine elver harvesters fish under a fixed landings quota of 9,688 pounds during a season that ends this year on June 7. Based on the DMR reports, with slightly more than nine weeks left in the 10-week season, about 1.2 percent of the quota has been taken out of Maine’s rivers.

Of the early landings, 51.84 pounds, about 45 percent of the total, were landed by holders of licenses issued by the Passamaquoddy Tribe. Under an agreement negotiated among Maine and the state’s four federally recognized Indian tribes in 2013, the Passamaquoddy have been allotted 14 percent (1,356 pounds) of the total elver quota allowed the state by the interstate Atlantic States Fisheries Management Commission. Another 7.9 percent is allocated among the Penobscot Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and the Aroostook Band of Micmacs.

Earlier this week, the ASMFC’s American Eel Board announced that it would defer until August a decision, currently being considered, on whether to restore Maine’s elver quota for the 2019 fishing season to its 2014 level of 11,749 pounds.

It isn’t hard to understand why the season is off to a slow start.

Elvers are juvenile eels that migrate from the Atlantic Ocean, where they are born, up Maine’s streams and rivers to fresh water, where they may live as long as 20 years before returning to the sea to spawn. Right now, the water in those rivers is cold, with the temperature kept down by recent snow melt.

On Tuesday, Young said fishing was slow around eastern Maine and in the Ellsworth area.

“There were just a couple of fishermen fishing last night and they got nothing,” Young said.

“We need warmer water, get rid of the snow and get the ice out of the ponds,” he said. “There are no eels running now. They’re laying out in the ocean.”

The data confirms what is obvious to the eye, and the elver fisherman.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

 

Decision To Allow More Baby Eel Fishing Pushed Back Months

March 27, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — A decision whether to allow fishermen to harvest more of the baby eels that are highly prized in Asian aquaculture has been put off for a few months.

Maine has the only significant fishery for baby eels, called elvers, in the country. The interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is considering allowing the fishery a higher quota in future years.

A spokeswoman for the commission says action on the idea has been deferred until August. It was possible for a decision as soon as May, but instead states will hold hearings from May to July about the issue.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public

 

Elvers Price Highest Ever For Fishery

March 27, 2018 — The price of elvers in the first few days of the season, is being reported as the highest ever for the fishery.

Maine has the only significant fishery for the young eels, also called elvers, in the country. The Elver season started Thursday March 22, and the Maine Department of Marine Resources is reporting they’re currently selling for just over $2,800 a pound.

The previous height was reported in 2015, at just under $2,200 a pound. Elvers are by far Maine’s most valuable fishery by pound, but the elver catch is limited by a quota, so in absolute terms it’s one of the least valuable in the state.

Read the full story at Maine Public

 

Fishermen of baby eels expect high price as stocks dry up

March 12, 2018 — ROCKPORT, Maine — Members of Maine’s baby-eel fishing industry are expecting high prices for the tiny fish this year because of a shortage on the international market, and sushi lovers could end up feeling the pinch.

Maine is the only U.S. state with a significant fishery for baby eels, or elvers. The tiny, translucent eels are sold to Asian aquaculture companies to be raised to maturity for use as food. They’re a key piece of the worldwide supply chain for Japanese dishes such as unagi, and some eventually make it back to the U.S.

The eels sold for about $1,300 per pound at the docks last year, about on par with an ounce of gold, and are already one of the most lucrative fisheries in the country on a per-pound basis. Fishermen in Asia are seeing a poor harvest this year, and European eel fisheries are cracking down on poaching, said state Rep. Jeffrey Pierce, a Dresden Republican and consultant to the elver fishery.

That means Maine’s elvers will be in higher demand, and prices could be higher for consumers.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post

Maine men indicted in New Jersey as part of ongoing elver sting operation

February 22, 2018 — Two men from midcoast Maine have been indicted in New Jersey as part of an East Coast baby eel trafficking scheme that so far has netted 19 guilty pleas.

Joseph Kelley of Woolwich and James Lewis of West Bath are charged in U.S. District Court in New Jersey with conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act, two counts of violation of the Lacey Act and smuggling.

Prosecutors allege that during 2013 and 2014, the two men illegally harvested, transported and sold baby eels, also known as elvers.

Fishing for elvers is illegal in all states except Maine, where it is permitted along the entire coast, and South Carolina, where the practice is permitted only in the Cooper River.

Federal prosecutors charged Kelley and Lewis with conspiring with other named conspirators — including Albert Cray of Phippsburg; Mark Green of West Bath; John Pinkham of Bath; George Anestis of Boxborough, Massachusetts; Michael Bryant of West Yarmouth, Massachusetts; and Thomas Choi, who owned a seafood company in Cambridge, Maryland — who purchased, sold or exported elvers worth more than $1.5 million, according to court documents.

Choi was sentenced in December to serve six months in prison for his role in the scheme.

Woolwich resident Bill Sheldon, one of the country’s major elver dealers, pleaded guilty in October to elver trafficking, but his sentencing date has not yet been set.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Maine’s lucrative elver harvest might be allowed to grow by millions of eels

February 7, 2018 — Maine fishermen might be allowed to catch millions more baby eels next year, regulators said Tuesday.

Baby eels, called elvers, are typically worth more than $1,000 per pound at the docks in Maine. Maine is the only U.S. state with a significant fishery for elvers, which are sold to aquaculture companies to be raised to maturity and used as food.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission limits Maine fishermen to 9,688 pounds of elvers per year, but on Tuesday it unveiled new rules that could increase that total to 11,479 pounds. There are more than 2,000 elvers in a pound.

Members of the eel fishing industry, as well as some chefs and seafood dealers, have called for the added quota because of years of stewardship in Maine to keep the elver population healthy. The state’s elvers are worth so much in part because foreign stocks of eels have dried up.

“Maine has addressed poaching in a very successful manner,” said Jeffrey Pierce, a consultant to Maine’s elver industry. He cited a swipe card system that allows the state to “track every elver from stream to exporter.”

The fisheries commission voted Tuesday to send the proposed new fishing rules out for public comment. It must vote on the new rules for them to take effect and could do so as soon as May. This year’s elver fishing season begins next month and will be limited by the current quota.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

 

Fishermen to Make Case to Fish for More Baby Eels in Maine

Interstate fishing regulators are considering the possibility of allowing Maine fishermen to catch more valuable baby eels.

February 5, 2018 — Interstate fishing regulators are considering the possibility of allowing Maine fishermen to catch more valuable baby eels.

Fishermen harvest baby eels, called elvers, from rivers and streams in Maine. They are worth more than $1,000 per pound to fishermen because they play a key role in Asian aquaculture operations.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is going to consider the subject of the elver quota on Tuesday.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News & World Report

 

Maine awards 11 new fishing licenses for valuable baby eels

January 25, 2018 — For the first time in five years, the state has issued new licenses for Maine’s lucrative baby eel fishery.

Eleven people were chosen through a lottery that more than 3,000 Mainers hoped to win, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The deadline for submitting applications to participate was Jan. 15.

In 2013, the last time the state held the drawing, more than 5,000 people applied for the chance to win one of four new elver fishing licenses.

Each new licensee will be allowed to catch up to four pounds of baby eels, also known as elvers, which usually sell for more than $1,000 per pound. Since 2014, the average annual price paid to elver fishermen has varied from about $875 per pound to more than $2,100.

The licenses have become a hot commodity as the price for elvers has skyrocketed, driven by voracious demand in Asia for eels. In 2016, the most recent year for which statistics are available, approximately 1,000 licensed Maine fishermen netted nearly $13.5 million worth of elvers.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Feds allege 2 men illegally trafficked baby eels in N.J.

January 22, 2018 — Two men were indicted this week on multiple federal crimes alleging they illegally trafficked young, high-priced American eels to sell to dealers or exporters.

Joseph Kelley and James Lewis, of Maine, illegally harvested young eels, which are called elvers, in New Jersey and Massachusetts, and sold them to dealers or exporters, the U.S. Justice Department alleged.

Young eels, also known as “glass eels,” can regularly fetch $1,300 per pound, according to The Boston Globe. When the 2011 Japan tsunami devastated Japan’s eel fisheries, prices reached $2,600 per pound.

“Harvesters have turned to the American eel to fill the void resulting from the decreased number of Japanese and European eels,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

But due to concerns about overfishing, every state in the U.S. except for Maine and South Carolina outlaws eel fishing, and it’s heavily regulated in those two states.

Read the full story at NJ.com