No Quota Increase for Maine
Elver Fishery

by Laurie Schreiber

ARLINGTON, Va.—During its deliberations in August over Addendum V to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Eel, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) declined Maine’s request to increase its elver quota from 9,688 pounds to 11,749 pounds.

As part of his statement in support of the increase, Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Patrick Keliher, who is one of Maine’s three ASFMC commissioners, told the ASMFC that an active investigation is underway of incidents of elver poaching earlier this year.

Last spring, Keliher implemented an emergency closure of the 2018 elver season, effective May 24, due to “significant illegal sales of elvers for cash that were not recorded through the swipe card system as required,” according to a DMR press release at the time. “The Department believes that if these sales had been recorded, the 2018 elver quota would have already been reached or exceeded. For this reason, an immediate closure of the fishery is necessary to prevent unusual damage and imminent depletion of the elver resource, caused by exceeding the 2018 elver fishing quota.”

In August, Keliher told the ASMFC, “This spring we started to receive information in regard to the sale of glass eels with the use of cash. Cash has been outlawed in Maine for any transaction of elvers or glass eels. We have a very good swipe card system in place. It’s basically real-time monitoring of individual quotas and it’s worked fantastic for the last several years. We deal with 23,000 individual transactions through the season with very few problem as far as technical issues.”

Keliher said the DMR started hearing rumors of cash sales at the end of the 2016 season, but those rumors were never verified. Midway through the 2018 season, however, the DMR received additional information regarding cash sales, including a Maine Marine Patrol plainclothes sale that confirmed the use of cash to go around the swipe card system. Keliher said he used his emergency authority to close the fishery after additional consultations with the Marine Patrol.

“I closed it with over 600 pounds of quota left,” he said. “At $2,700 per pound, that was a substantial economic hit.” Still, he said, the closure was designed to protect the resource and the fishery. “To date, we have summonsed three different dealers and issued 12 different tickets,” he said. “This is an ongoing investigation.”

The focus now, he said, is on “the harvester side of the equation, trying to determine which harvesters were selling for cash. We have a good list. That list happens to be just first names. We’re continuing to drill down on that….We have tools available to use that are being utilized with our partnership with the [Maine] State Police and with the FBI, because of potential money laundering issues associated with this. So this is a fairly substantial investigation and one we’re taking seriously.”

One ASFMC commissioner wanted to know how many elver dealers there are in Maine. Keliher said there are four to five dealers who handle 60 to 70 percent of the overall amount of elvers that run through the swipe card system, and 16 active dealers overall. The state has a regular dealer license and an exporter license for those who want to export elvers out of state. Approximately five exporters were active this year, he said.

Another commissioner wanted to know if the DMR had an estimate of how many pounds of elvers were sold for cash.

“There was just over 600 pounds of quota left,” replied Keliher. “The information that was brought to me by the Marine Patrol, based on estimates of cash sales, would have put us just at or maybe a tad bit over the quota.”

ASFMC Commissioner Dan McKiernan wanted to know if Maine has reason to believe that there were permitted Maine fishermen involved in cash sales, or non-permitted fishermen and, if the latter, whether some of them could have come from out of state.

“The information we have is they were all Maine permitted fishermen,” said Keliher. “We did not have out-of-state cases this year.”

ASMFC Commissioner Loren Lustig wanted to know how severe the legal repercussions would be in the event of guilty verdicts. “Is there sufficient pain that it’s not just viewed as the cost of doing business?” he asked.

“If you bypass the use of the swipe card system, it’s a felony in Maine,” said Keliher. Potential penalities include a $2,000 fine, jail time, and a one-year loss of license. Maine law also has a “two strikes and out” provision, which results in permanent loss of license, he said. The state is currently looking at a “one strike and out” penalty, he said.

Jeffrey Pierce, a Maine state legislator and an advisor to the Maine Elver’s Association, also spoke in support of a quota increase. He told the ASMFC that, although the Maine elver fishery had a few problems this year, the swipe card system did work.

“Some buyers tried to evade the system, but once the misconduct was suspected, the illegal activity was stopped,” Pierce said. “I’m here to assure the board that the association is dedicated to making sure there’s no illegal sales in this fishery. We’re working with the DMR and with members of the Maine state legislature to strengthen laws for exporters and dealers. The Maine elver fishermen and women hope the board takes into consideration all of the hard work Maine had done over the past five years to make sure this fishery is compliant.”

But Mari-Beth DeLucia, a member of the ASFMC’s American Eel Board Advisory Panel, said that two of three members who took part in a conference call on the matter favored the status quo. “There were concerns about poaching, and that raising the quota would go against advice to reduce mortality at all life stages,” DeLucia said, referring to the 2012 eel stock assessment. The third member, though, cited Maine’s quick response to poaching, she added.

One commissioner wanted to know, if the investigation shows there was significant illegal harvest that resulted in a quota overage, how the overage would be paid back.

Keliher explained that, when the Marine Patrol seizes illegal elvers, those elvers are counted toward the overall quota. If the quota is exceeded, the overage would be deducted from the following year’s quota, he said.

Keliher moved to increase the quota, pending Maine strengthening its laws governing the elver fishery. “Changes shall include, but not be limited to, the chain of custody of elvers from harvest to export thus ensuring the swipe card system cannot be bypassed,” the motion said. “Maine would be required to report back to the Law Enforcement Committee which would make recommendations to the Eel Management Board at the 2019 Summer Meeting for Board consideration.”

Keliher explained that Maine’s elver fishery goes back more than 40 years and has become increasingly important. The price has jumped 10-fold since the 1990s, he said. In response, he said, Maine instituted a limited entry system and controls on gear. Although the fishery was quiet for a time, in 2012 landings hit 21,610 pounds—an all-time high.

“Maine spent a tremendous amount of time and effort tightening up the laws and regulations to ensure the poaching problems were taken care of.” In subsequent years, he said, the DMR voluntarily instituted a 35 percent reduction of landings, from 18,000 pounds landed in 2013 to an 11,739-pound quota. Maine instituted individual fishing quotas, and penalties were moved from civil to criminal. The two-strike provision was put in place.

“We have a system in place that was bypassed this year, but it’s one of strongest reporting systems of any fishery in place today,” Keliher said.

The implementation of the ASMFC’s Addendum IV to the eel plan cut Maine’s quota to today’s 9,688 pounds. “We’ve tracked close to that quota,” except for one year of low landings due to a late winter and a significant weather event in the spring, he said. “Maine continues to invest heavily in this fishery,” he said, citing the DMR’s establishment of a life cycle study that costs $100,00 per year; approval of nearly $60,00 in overtime during the spring for Marine Patrol activities; habitat improvements; and other investments in science and policy, such as improvements of fish passage facilities. “This shows this board that the state of Maine takes fish passage and the promulgation of our elver fishery very seriously,” he said. “With that in mind, I would urge the board to support this motion.”

But Commissioner Thomas Fote said he was concerned about the prospect of increasing the quota. “I’m always very cynical when we cannot estimate what we’re taking out of the resource—how it’s going to affect the resource 20 years from now,” he said.

Roy Miller said he shared Fote’s concerns. “I’m impressed with the efforts that Maine has gone through to strengthen their reporting and their monitoring of this fishery, and their efforts toward enhancing fish passage,” Miller said. “Nonetheless, our only advice from the stocks assessment science is that this stock remains depleted. And also we don’t know the effect of the harvest of Maine glass eels on the rest of the East Coast glass eel relative abundance, if any….So for those general misgivings, I favor the status quo.”

“I applaud the work that Pat Keliher has done,” said Commissioner Dennis Abbott. But that work, he said, demonstrates that there are problems in Maine. “We were assured the swipe card system would make all these problems go away and they would be able to track things,” Abbott said. But with the value of the glass eels fishery being high, there’s no doubt there are individuals who will try to beat the system, both in Maine and outside Maine, he said. Abbott offered a substitute motion to accept the status quo.

Commissioner Craig Miner wanted to know if Maine has plans to increase penalties for illegal activity. “It almost seems like $2,000 doesn’t even equal a pound, based on the current structure of sales,” he said.

“We have found that fines are not the deterrent in Maine,” responded Keliher. “We have revamped our penalty structure associated with license suspension and not fines.” The more effective deterrent, he explained, is loss of license. “We have an administrative process that can very quickly take a license,” he said. “If they have a 40-pound quota, then 40 times $3,000 is a significant penalty.”

Commissioner John Clark said he supported the increased quota. Maine, he said, has always supported enforcement. And Maine’s elver fishery doesn’t seem to have affected the overall eel population. “During the whole time glass eel fishery in Maine been going on, we see in our yellow eel harvest that we’ve had fairly steady landings for at least 20 years, so I don’t see this as being a problem for the eel population,” Clark said.

In the end, the ASFMC voted 13-5 to retain the status quo.

The ASFMC also considered 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. The option resulted from an increased desire expressed by industry members and others to grow eels for the market. According to the press release, the ASFMC slightly modified the aquaculture provision. It maintained the 200-pound limit but modified the criteria for evaluating the proposed harvest area’s contribution to the overall population. Under the revised provision, the ASFMC approved Maine’s aquaculture proposal for the 2019 fishing season, allowing for an additional 200 pounds of elvers to be harvested for development in domestic aquaculture. That amount is in addition to Maine’s regular quota.

With regard to the idea of three contiguous states pooling elvers to achieve 600 pounds, commissioners pointed out that only two states, Maine and South Carolina, are allowed to fish for elvers.

“New Hampshire has rules in place that don’t allow the harvest, so we would not be able to participate in hat process,” said Cheri Patterson, one of New Hampshire’s commissioners. McKiernan, from Massachusetts, said his state also doesn’t allow elver fishing.

The addendum also increases the yellow eel coastwide cap starting in 2019, to 916, 473 pounds. The increase of less than 1 percent is designed to reflect a correction in the historical harvest, according to the press release. And the addendum initiates management action if the yellow eel coastwide cap is exceeded by 10 percent in two consecutive years. If the management trigger is exceeded, only those states accounting for more than 1 percent of the total yellow eel landings will be responsible for adjusting their measures.

The implementation date for Addendum V is Jan. 1, 2019.