ELLSWORTH, Maine — Elver fishing for 2012 came to a close at noon Thursday, but not before the price for the juvenile eels again soared to unprecedented levels.
The going price this week for the small, transparent eels was $2,600 per pound. That’s approximately three times the $891 per pound that fishermen were paid on average for their catch in 2011, which at the time was considered an astronomically high price.
Before last year, the highest average annual price elver fishermen had received for their catch was in 2007 when they earned $346 per pound, according to state statistics. The total statewide value to fishermen of the elver harvest in 2011 was $7.6 million.
Officials have said the price spike has been fueled by tighter limits on eel harvests in Europe and destruction of eel stocks in Japan from the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck in March 2011. Continued high demand in Asia for eels has made elver licenses highly sought-after items in Maine, where many fishermen have said the 10-week elver season is responsible for much of their annual income. Maine and South Carolina are the only two states where elver harvesting is permitted.
“We definitely did not expect this,” Jessica Card of Franklin said Thursday as she dismantled a funnel-shaped fyke net on the shore of the Union River in downtown Ellsworth. “We expected the price to be high this year, and we knew [it would be] but we didn’t know it was going to double or even triple from the year before.”
Dave Pelletier of Surry, who runs a print shop in Ellsworth when he’s not elver fishing, said the high price has provided a big financial boost to many people in eastern Maine.
“It’s what everybody needed,” Pelletier said as he and Card took their net down. “This is a lifesaver for many people in the area.”
To help protect eel stocks, the Maine Department of Marine Resources has capped the number of elver licenses at 407. The Passamaquoddy Tribe, which has the authority to issue licenses on its own, stirred up controversy in early May when it issued 236 elver licenses to its members without consulting with DMR.
Though elver fishermen in Maine say there seemed to have been plenty of juvenile eels in the state’s tidal waterways this spring, the federal government is considering listing American eels as endangered or threatened, which could result in a ban on elver fishing nationwide. Elvers spawn in the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean and then migrate each spring to shore and into fresh water, where they grow into adults that eventually return to sea to breed.
Ray Brann of Friendship, who is licensed to buy elvers for a dealer in Dresden, was conducting business on Thursday out of a white van parked just off Water Street in downtown Ellsworth. A retired fisherman, Brann said the elver industry has been good for the entire state.
“Prices are very, very high,” he said. “It’s good for the fishermen but hard on the dealers. It pours a lot of money into the economy.”
Brann added that it would be a shame if elver fishing is banned in 2013 and that revenue is lost.
“That’s a concern,” he said.
Maj. Alan Talbot of Marine Patrol, the law enforcement division of DMR, said Friday there have been a lot of elver fishing violations this spring, most of which have involved people fishing for the small, transparent juvenile eels without licenses.
“There was a lot more poaching,” he said.
The “vast majority” of elver violations issued by Marine Patrol over the past two months are pending in court and have yet to be resolved, Talbot said. Whether higher penalties for illegal elver fishing approved by the Legislature in March are proven to be effective, he said, depends on how most of those cases turn out.
“We hope the high fines will have some effect,” he said.
Despite the economic benefits enjoyed by those with elver fishing or dealer licenses, Talbot said the end of the elver season means some relief for his officers, who now have more time to pay attention to their year-round duties such as monitoring lobster catches and responding to emergencies.
He said it is too soon to tell how many pounds of elvers were caught in Maine this spring, but regardless of the volume it has been an “extremely busy” season for Marine Patrol.
“It’s been the busiest [elver season] in the last 10 years, certainly, and all because of the price,” Talbot said.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.
Wow, I’m in the wrong business….
Someone in the know told me there have been 50 or so experienced guys who have earned a million or so this year. I might change careers, too!
Bravest….that would be quite a jump even with triple prices…. as the total statewide value last year was 7.6 million….but $2,600 a pound is still amazing.
If we’re lucky we might be able to fish next year. The extra 236 licenses most of which can have 1 fyke and 1 dip is probably going to hose us.
” To help protect eel stocks, the Maine Department of Marine Resources has
capped the number of elver licenses at 407. The Passamaquoddy Tribe,
which has the authority to issue licenses on its own, stirred up
controversy in early May when it issued 236 elver licenses to its members without consulting with DMR.”
Typical of the Passamaquoddy Tribe. They do whatever they please, and are allowed to without consideration of anyone else, or the fishery they are destroying. There should be one law, across the board, not one for the Tribe and one for everyone else. It’s reverse discrimination at it’s finest.
Actually, I think that it’s us American’s that did what we pleased with the native tribes when we landed here. Considering the screwing that they got, I’d say the ability to bypass some of our laws is well deserved. If the tribe is going to issue that many licenses next year, then the State should cut down on the number it’s allowing to off set it.
I’d trust a tribe of Native American’s to take care of their land far faster that I would a bunch of otherwise unemployed capitalists.
Yeah, because they have done such a great job at managing their lands.
I understand that some horrible things happened….a VERY, VERY long time ago. I did not do it, you did not do it, my grand parents, nor great grandparents did it. How many generations must pay and at what point does a person have to earn their own way, like the rest of us?? You know, I would have a lot less problem with it if most of them actually used the resources provided to benefit themselves and family instead of wasting them.
Lets not forget the Indians where catching elvers and selling them to the Asian market, long before the white man showed up.
How did they do that, Overnight Express?
I can’t remember, either Fedex or UPS.
Tell that to the israeli’s
got a chuckle from the statement from the dealer about how hard it is on them! The middle man is crying again. if he’s paying 2600 to the fishermen then he’s getting more then that for sure or he would’nt be doing it
Thank you for the tobacco, by the way.
I’m all for them going in to any fishery as long as they don’t use any of the white man’s tools.
“I’d
trust a tribe of Native American’s to take care of their land far
faster that I would a bunch of otherwise unemployed capitalists.”
And that is exactly why you will never get it!
From your post, you take responsibility for what happened to Native Americans over 300 years ago! Very big of you!
I don’t, I wasn’t there!
What an asinine comment. The tribal members are no more conservation minded than any other person going after glass eels at $2600. Out on the west coast, the tribes have special rights that allow them to gillnet salmon near spawning beds with adverse effects on the stock. We are all culpable for the negative impacts on species.
That might have been true once,but the Indians are just as ‘white’ as anyone else now.Look at the domestic violence,and the casinos.There sure isnt anything mystic and pure about that!
You have no insight.
How about instead of ridiculing someone with a stupid comment, how about you provide some real insight then.
This fishery will collapse within two years at these prices.
They pay in cash.
Anyone willing to pay $2600. for a pound of little eels deserves whatever it is that they get….
Amazing, but there are still several Washington County products that sell for more per pound than elvers and those businesses seem to be thriving….
Such as?????
Does anybody know what the eels cannot be raised to maturity here and then sold?
Do the Asians know something we don’t?
Just like every thing else, “Balls to the wall today, with little regard for the future.”
I think it’s a cost effectiveness thing. It would cost more to raise them here and sell them there than it is to just sell the young for them to raise. But if the market could somehow be swayed so no elvers are sold and they are raised to market size than sold, they could ostensibly control the market. Someone who could get them to reproduce in captivity would also make a ton of money.
Elvers is everywhere,man.
Yes this has been a great elver season…..but, what about the last 2o seasons, some of which we didn’t even catch enough to pay for our nets! Divide the money made this year by 20….I’d say it’s about time! These fishermen work hard and have paid their dues (not to mention their licensing fees each year), I’m guessing that some of the money made will be put back into the local ecomony so hopefully, many will benefit.