Elver Industry Aims for Quota Boost

by Laurie Schreiber

ROCKPORT—The Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission (ASMFC) has a proposal on tap to increase Maine’s elver quota from 9,688 pounds to the 2014 quota of 11,749.

ASMFC’s draft Addendum V to its eel management plan includes the option, as well as an option that would allow contiguously bordered states to pool their 200-pound elver aquaculture allowance, up to a maximum of 600 pounds.

The draft addendum will go to public hearings, which have not been scheduled yet.

The terms “elver” and “glass eel” are used interchangeably, although they are slightly different life stages.

“The ASMFC still considers the glass eel stock to be depleted,” Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Pat Keliher told members of the Maine Elver Fishermen Association (MEFA) during their annual meeting in early March at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum.

Maine can justify its proposal to increase the quota because of the various measures the state and industry have worked out to manage the fishery, Keliher said. That includes individual quotas, a swipe card tracking system, habitat work, and a 25-year life cycle study.

“Those are the things that saved this fishery,” he said. “But a push for more quota will not be seen well by other states that still want to see this fishery shut down.”

MEFA Executive Director Abden Simmons encouraged harvesters to continue to be good stewards of the industry.

“If you guys are out there, take care of wherever you’re fishing to make sure you clean up after yourself,” said Simmons. “Access is crucial.”

“It’s been a long five years and I know there’s been a lot of frustration about how to proceed” with regard to getting more quota,” said Rep. Jeff Pierce, MEFA’s co-director. “We’ve come a long way in five years.”

Pierce explained that, in 2013, the ASFMC considered shutting down the fishery because of poaching and management inconsistencies.

“With that, MEFA was formed,” he said. “There’s been a lot of hard work by all the board members” plus the DMR and the Maine Marine Patrol. The latter was often out at all hours of the night with harvesters, he noted.

Since then, he said, the industry has shown the ASMFC that it can prosecute “a good clean fishery and a good industry.”

The ASMFC at its February meeting recognized the industry’s work, including implementation of a overall and individual quotas, and a swipe card system to track landings, Pierce reported.

“It might not be as smooth as everyone would have liked, but it saved the industry,” he said.

Regarding Maine’s request for a higher quota, Pierce said it was important for harvesters to show up at the ASMFC’s hearings on the topic.

In February, the ASMFC’s American Eel Management Board approved American Eel Draft Addendum V for public comment. The Draft Addendum proposes alternatives to the current Maine glass eel commercial quota and the aquaculture provisions of the plan; as well as alternative coastwide landings caps, management triggers, state-by-state allocations, and transfer provisions for the yellow eel commercial fishery.

According to an ASFMC press release, the board initiated Draft Addendum V in October 2017 in response to concerns over the management program as specified in Addendum IV.

Draft Addendum V’s specifics regarding alternative quota levels for Maine’s glass eel fishery include increasing the quota above the 2015-2018 level of 9,688 pounds. Changes to the aquaculture provisions of the plan include an option that would allow contiguously bordered states to pool their 200-pound glass eel aquaculture allowance, up to a maximum of 600 pounds. IT’s anticipated the majority of states from Maine through Florida will be conducting public hearings on the Draft Addendum. The details of the hearings haven’t yet been released.

According to the DMR, the elver fishery is one of three distinct fisheries in Maine that relate to three different life stages. The glass eel/elver fishery harvests small eels returning to rivers from their ocean spawning areas. The fishery utilizes fine mesh fyke nets (a funnel-shaped net) or dip nets to collect elvers as they ascend to fresh water. The yellow eel fishery occurs for eels which are growing in brackish and fresh waters. These eels are typically more than 2-3 years old, but not yet mature. Harvesting gear in this fishery includes baited eel pots and fyke nets. The silver eel fishery occurs in late summer and fall and consists of weirs across streams and rivers to collect out migrating sexually mature eels that are moving downstream to go to the Sargasso Sea to spawn.

While the eel fisheries have a long history in Maine, the elver fishery is relatively recent, having begun in the early 1970s to 1978 and recommenced in the early 1990s. The fishery was nonexistent from 1979 to the early 1990s due to a collapse in market demand for elvers. In recent years, market demand has increased dramatically. Elvers are highly valued in Japan, China, Taiwan, and Korea, where they are cultured and reared to adult size for the food fish market. Due to recent intense market demand, elvers have become the most valuable marine resource in terms of price per pound. In 2015, the price reached over $2,000.

But this year, elvers have become even more valuable. In recent weeks, at least one buyer posting on Facebook was offering a starting rate of $2,350 per pound.

The fishing season for elvers runs from March 22 through June 7.

The value of the fishery could clearly be seen when the DMR held a lottery for fishing licenses this past spring. The DMR last held a lottery for elver licenses in 2013. The legislature suspended further lotteries after that season because of an overall state quota established by the ASFMC, which reduced the amount available for every licensed harvester. But in 2017, the legislature authorized the DMR to renew the lottery but capped the total licenses at 425.

By January 2018, more than 3,000 people had applied for the 11 available licenses. Each new license holder received a minimum of four pounds of quota. Quota for the new license holders comes from licenses that were not renewed in 2017 and thus became available for redistribution to license holders

In 2017, Maine elver harvesters had another season in which their fishery was by far the most valuable on a per pound basis. Harvesters landed 9,343 pounds of the 9,688-pound state quota. At $1,303 a pound, the elver fishery was valued at $12,155,672, the fifth highest per pound and overall value in the history of the fishery.

“We’re all passionate about we do in our industry,” said Pierce. “We all want this industry to fishery to have more quota. But we also need to recognize we’re the only state that fishes these, besides the small quota in South Carolina.”

MEFA members said it was important to establish a system of communication so that all members know what’s going on, with regard to regulation, management, and membership activity.

“When you’re talking about someone’s quota, we’re all in this together,” said harvester Julie Keene. We’ve gone through hell together. Let’s make this transparent. Let’s not get blind-sided.”

“Addendum 5 will probably be our last shot at a quota increase for a while,” said Pierce. “Let’s keep our eye on Addendum 5.”

Keliher said he expected the ASFMC hearings will be held this coming summer, after the harvest season is over.

Most of the focus of the addendum, Keliher reported, is on the yellow eel quota, with talk at the ASMFC of a significant reduction.

“If the board goes in that direction, they’ll never consider an increase in the glass eel quota,” he said. “The ASMFC still considers the glass eel stock to be depleted.”

He continued, “That doesn’t mean we can’t justify a glass eel increase. We justify it by all the work done in Maine—the swipe card, the individual quotas, tracking product from dealer to dealer and through to export. Those are the things that saved this fishery. The ASMFC was an inch away from closing this fishery down. Now we can expand on that work and say, ‘Look at all the habitat work we’ve done.’ By taking out dams, putting in fishway and eel ramps—all of that should give us some credit for increasing quota. But the push for more quota will not be seen well by other states that still want to see this fishery shut down.”

Still, Keliher said, returning to the 11,000-plus-pound level is justifiable, because the 9,000-plus-pound level was “an arbitrary decision” made based on what the industry had caught the prior year. “Whether we’ll win on that argument remains to be seen,” he said.

The DMR will send notices out when the public hearings are scheduled, Keliher said.

Keliher noted that a new, 25-year life cycle study of the eel resource is expected to boost the state’s standing.

“As long as we’re doing it, we’re getting credit,” he said. “If we stop doing it this year, this fishery will close next year. That’s how important this study is to the fishery.”

The DMR has the ability to run a lottery annually, said Keliher.

“There was a lot was of interest in the lottery this year, and we raised almost $300,000” through application fees. “But we won’t make that every year.” The money goes into the DMR’s eel and elver fund and will be used to help absorb the cost of the life cycle survey, he said.