Maine Eel Fishermen Merge
and Discuss ITQs

Mitch Feigenbaum. Feigenbaum has been an elver dealer, American Sustainable Eel Association board member and a proponent of Individual Transferable Quota in the Maine Elver fishery. He said corporations seeking to finance eel grow out operations will need to show banks a secured supply of elvers as a part of their business plan and ITQs would do that for them. Fishermen’s Voice photo

ROCKPORT, ME—At the Maine Elver Fishermen’s Association annual meeting on March 5, MEFA announced it will be merging with the American Eel Sustainability Association. It is hoped the merger will enable the two organizations to speak with one voice and be better heard by their regulatory agency, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Mitch Feigenbaum, a member of the AESA board and long-time elver dealer, said the unity of the two groups would strengthen both groups when combined with public relations, symposiums, legislative actions and science promotion.

The discussion of moving to an Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ), which would allow eel quota to be sold, was the most significant regarding the future of the fishery for independent elver fishermen. Transferability means that, as property, the quota could be handed down in a family, used as collatoral or sold to a corporation growing out eels. Once sold to a corporation, quota would not likely return to public access. Feigenbaum introduced a bill in 2013 to get ITQs in the Maine elver fishery but it was defeated.

Currently Maine has an Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) system that was worked out in the last few years to manage the elver harvest and deter derby fishing. Quotas were based on an average of what fishermen caught in a three-year period. Some received a quota of only 4 pounds.

Quota varies from year to year based on stock assessments. Swipe cards allotted to each fisherman track how much quota has been used. The fishery is shut down when the total quota is reached, a determination based on swipe card entries.

The elver fishery is now a closed fishery in Maine with a moratorium on new licenses. If a license holder leaves the fishery, that quota is divided among the remaining number of license holders.

NOAA has been promoting various forms of aquaculture around the U.S. and more recently, eel grow-out facilities have been on the list. Feigenbaum said an ITQ system would be required by banks if they were going to finance eel grow-out operations. These facilities are large investments and securing a supply of glass eels, or elvers, would have to be part of any business plan proposed to a bank. The Japanese currently buy most of the tiny glass eels harvested in Maine and have been growing them out for 50 years. Japanese elver resources have been depleted for decades.

Alewife Harvesters of Maine board of directors member and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) representative Jake Kritzer said EDF has been one of the primary advocates for ITQs in fisheries. "Mitch Feigenbaum was synched right into ITQs" early on, Kritzer said. ITQs have been tried in other fisheries. Some U.S. groundfisheries with sector systems in place have seen rapid consolidation. The Alaska ground fishery is one that has seen a lot of ITQ driven consolidation.

ITQ critics argue that in the cyclical world of fishing, where prices, stock strength, changing regulations and the fortunes of independent fishermen can at times be volatile, the financial power of big players and corporations to buy up access is inevitable.

The Maine DMR said that at this time it does not have elver ITQs on the table. Jeff Pierce, president of Alewife Harvesters of Maine and adviser to MEFA, cited the case of Canadian lobster licenses, which became transferable and are now selling for $1 million, as an instance of the use of ITQs. He said the profits in growing out eels can be so high that it could put pressure on the ITQ issue.