Elver Swipe Cards in the Works
by Laurie Schreiber
Stakeholders in Maine’s elver fishery listen to a proposal to set up a swipe card system to help monitor the fishery. Laurie Schreiber photo
ELLSWORTH – Landings of glass eels in Maine, in 2013, totaled 18,253 pounds and were valued at nearly $33 million.
The haul was down by $5 million from 2012, which came in at $38.7 million for 20,700 pounds. But the boom was still in force. And the short season, which occurs in the spring, attracted a fair amount of illegal fishing.
From 2008 to 2010, the value of Maine’s glass eel fishery was only between $1.5 million to half a million.
The high value was due to high prices to be fetched on Asian markets. During the height of the 2012 season, elvers were valued at approximately $2,600 per pound; throughout the season, the price averaged around $2,000 per pound. The 2012 elver fishery was second only in value to the lobster industry.
The price in 2013 had declined by several hundred dollars per pound.
Now the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is working out a new system to obtain more accurate and timely landings data on glass eels, which are also called elvers. About 60 fishermen appeared at a DMR hearing on Nov. 19 that aired a proposal to institute an electronic swipe card system.
According to the DMR, the proposed regulation would require dealers to maintain records of all elver transactions. “The purpose of this portion of the proposed rule is to obtain more accurate and timely information on the amount of elvers caught or landed in Maine for use in fisheries management as well as to demonstrate the social and economic importance of marine resources to Maine,” the DMR said. “The swipe card system is also a more secure system in which harvesters and dealers cannot easily conduct transactions to sell or purchase illegal elvers.”
The proposed rule would require elver harvester license holders to present a swipe card to be used by the dealer in order to record each transaction. It would also require dealers to report what they receive from harvesters on a weekly basis during the harvesting season. Dealers will be required to provide their own computers for reporting, but the reporting software and the swipe card readers/receipt printers will be provided by DMR. In addition, the rule would require elver dealers to maintain paper records for all elver transactions, including dealer-to-dealer transactions, for three years.
Emergency rulemaking was enacted earlier in 2013 that required elver dealers to report quantities on a weekly basis. Previously, elver dealer license holders were required to report information to DMR on a monthly basis. Weekly reporting will remain in force in order to provide the DMR with information for enforcement and resource protection.
Folks were generally amenable to the idea of a system that might eliminate poaching and promote resource protection. But they had concerns about the details. One man wanted to know if the information provided by individual harvesters would be kept confidential.
“Is it used in any other fishery in Maine? Are we the guinea pig?” asked another, who was told that, yes, Maine’s elver fishery would be the first to use this sort of system, although other fisheries have other electronic reporting requirements.
Told that harvesters would still be required to report on a monthly basis, Dennis Tozier said it made no sense to have monthly reporting if weekly reports will be made.
“You should do one or the other,” Tozier said.
Others expressed concern about the electronic nature of the system, should a dealer’s computer crash, a magnetic strip reader fail, or a swipe card be lost or stolen. They said that delays around replacing cards or fixing computers wouldn’t work for this limited-season fishery.
A lot of these guys can’t hold the eels for a long period of time,” said John Smith. “You’re going to kill eels. They’re going to die within hours. You’ve got to have a backup system that’s going to work.”
The DMR is also looking into reducing the harvest by 25-40 percent from the 2013 harvest for the 2014 fishing season.
The comment period will remain open until Dec. 2. Comments must include your name and the organization you represent, if any.
Contact Heidi Bray (207) 633-9504 for Elver Swipe Card System; Terry Stockwell (207) 624-6553 for ASMFC Eel Compliance.
Send comments to: attn: K. Rousseau, Department of Marine Resources, 21 State House Station, Augusta, Maine 04333, dmr.rulemaking@maine.gov, (207) 624-6573, FAX: (207) 624-6024.