West Coast Group Trumpeting American Eel for Endangered Species Act Listing

Four-inch elvers or glass eels as they are known for their transparency as young of the year. NOAA photo

The federal Department of Fish and Wildlife will be deciding at the end of September whether the American eel should be listed as endangered or threatened. If it is listed, it will mean all species that swim or co-mingle with the American eel will also be off-limits for fishermen, said Jeff Pierce, former Executive Director of the Maine Elver Fishermen’s Association.

The current action by the Department of Fish and Wildlife is in response to a petition from a Fresno, Calif., group, called the Council For Endangered Species Act Reliability at the time of the petition, but now called the Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy & Reliability. There is no American eel fishery in California, but farm-raised American eel is an industry in the west.

California doesn’t have wild eels but Maine does. The publicity about the elver fishery in Maine has been about high prices and last spring’s harvest numbers being low. The high prices are a result of the demand from Europe and Asia where the resource is in decline. The harvest in 2015 suffered from a cold spring and an end of the fishing season tied to a date, not optimum water temperatures.

Mature American Eel NOAA photo

Maine can defend its elver harvest, said Pierce. Maine has added 1.5 million acres of restored habitat for alewives and elvers in the last two years alone. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which has jurisdiction over American eel in the eastern U.S., limited the harvest to 9,700 pounds last year, and Maine has instituted measures, including a swipe-card system and dealer reporting, to monitor the harvesting, transporting and sale of elvers. When sales reach the total allowable catch, the fishery shuts down.

Maine has had the best American eel and elver habitat, including rivers, streams and lakes, for many years, said Pierce. Individuals have cleared access for alewives and elvers at dams and fishways. The state has been involved in removing unused dam projects and building and repairing fishways around others. The Federal Department of Fisheries and Wildlife will decide on the American eel listing on September 29, 2015.