Fishermen Say Healthy Elver Runs Justify Quota Increase

by Laurie Schreiber

BREWER—Elver fishermen appearing at an Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASFMC) hearing, held June 6 in Brewer, on draft Addendum V to its eel management plan, agreed Maine’s quota should be raised from 9,688 pounds to 11,749 pounds.

When the ASMFC first established a quota, in 2014, the fishery was already stable, said Maine Elver Fishermen Association Co-Director Darrell Young. “There are plenty of eels; we could never overfish them,” he said.

With the quota, Young said, fishermen have been catching their allotments sooner than the end of the season.

“We’re all done by June 1,” he said. “When we used to fish in June, in the ‘90s,our biggest catch was in June. Now we let them run,” which adds up to a healthy resource, he added. “We’ve done everything the Atlantic States has asked us to do, 100 percent.”

According to the draft addendum, in 2012, Maine’s elver landings hit an all-time high of 21,610 pounds, with a landed value of over $38 million.

“This huge spike in price per pound created a gold rush mentality that brought with it poaching problems that most thought Maine could not overcome,” the draft says. But over the next two years, the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) responded by instituting a voluntary reduction in harvest of 35 percent from the 18,076 pounds that was landed in 2013. This established the first elver quota for Maine at 11,749 pounds.

Maine then instituted individual fishing quotas, and penalties were moved from civil to criminal and included a “two strike” provision where a harvester license would be permanently revoked. Also in 2013, the DMR began to develop a swipe card program that allowed dealers to enter daily landings data quickly and allowed DRM staff to analyze that data within 24 hours of receipt, serving as a management tool to implement an individual fishing quota for harvesters. The original harvester-to-dealer system was expanded in 2015 to include dealer-to-dealer transactions. The elver quota was then cut another 11 percent, reducing Maine’s quota to 9,688 pounds. Since then, landings have tracked closely with the quota, with the exception of 2015, when a late spring with ice and high water contributed to a drop in landings to 5,260 pounds.

Given their high market value, poaching is known to be a serious problem in several states, including Maine, the draft says. Enforcement is challenging due to the nature of the fishery, as a mobile, nighttime operation with a high product value.

In May, the DMR shut down the fishery two weeks early, on May 24 due to poaching. An investigation by the Maine Marine Patrol had revealed that some Maine elver dealers were paying a cash amount that was substantially less than the per pound price for elvers that were harvested and accounted for through the state’s swipe card system, which is intended to record the weight and value of each sale, allowing the state to ensure that harvesting does not exceed individual and overall state quotas. The value and weight of the illegally harvested and sold elvers were not recorded with the swipe card system and not accounted for in the DMR’s quota management system.

“This is a fishery that stood to net Maine license holders nearly $24 million this year, and now because of the greed of some dealers and harvesters, I am obligated to cut that opportunity short,” DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher said in a news release at the time. “We believe that if the illegal sales had been recorded, the 2018 elver quota would have already been exceeded.”

At the ASMFC hearing, fishermen, speaking in favor of a quota increase, focused on what the fishery as a whole was doing right.

“The fishery has allowed me to have more time with my family than other types of jobs,” said Rustin Taylor of Mount Desert. “That’s a foundation for building good community.”

Another fisherman said that, when the quota was decreased, he lost 60 percent of his income. “The only income I have is from elver fishing,” he said. “I dug clams last year, just enough to pay for my clam license. Where I come from, there’s no work. Clamming is the biggest industry in my area. We have a scallop boat that broke down opening day last year; we lost the entire season. We don’t have anything else we can depend on except for this fishery. If we get our quota back, it would be wonderful. My elver fishing allows me to help my family.” He said the quota forces elver fishermen to dump back multiple pounds, in order not to exceed their individual quotas. “I think it’s so sad when I have to dump back 20 pounds, 30 pounds,” he continued. “I’m on the river some nights and I see everyone dumping. You try to take, well, 4 pounds, and you dump the rest back. Are they just going to be eaten by fish when they get up the river? Are they going to go up against that dam and die?”

Another elver fisherman said the fishery’s gone from his supplemental income to his main source of income. “The volume of elvers has on average increased,” he said. “The elver fishery has become the No. 2 grossing fishery in Maine, incorporating millions of dollars in the Maine economy.” The swipe card system, he said, does the job it needs to do in terms of tracking the fishery. “An increase in our overall quota is warranted,” he said. “And I also limit out very quickly, well before the season’s over. I got almost a 30-pound quota. This year I limited out in a month. Last year I limited out in 13 days.”

Other fishermen agreed that the swipe card system was effective.

“An increase definitely wouldn’t hurt the population,” one said.

Another fisherman said the resource is far more abundant than the ASMFC thinks it is. He offered to bring ASMFC staffers onto the rivers during the elver run so they could get an accurate count. “We’re willing to help the Atlantic States any way we can to get accurate counts, so fishermen can make a living,” he said.

Fishermen also favored a provision in the addendum that would allow up to three contiguously bordered states and jurisdictions to pool their harvest of 200 pounds of elvers, up to a maximum of 600 pounds, for domestic aquaculture purposes.

Currently, the American Eel Farm in North Carolina is the only facility approved for domestic aquaculture, which it has done annually since 2016, according to the draft. The option resulted from an increased desire expressed by industry members and others to grow eels for the market.

“It would provide some stability, locally and along the East Coast, for the entire fishery, and more job opportunities,” said Taylor.

“The 600-pound aquaculture quota is very important,” agreed Young. “There are three people who would like to start aquaculture operations, and once that ball got rolling, I think it would grow with the quota we have.”