A Waldoboro man has been found guilty in New York of trafficking in poached elvers, according to that state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
Richard D. Austin, 37, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of illegal commercialization of protected wildlife, the agency said Friday in a prepared statement.
Austin and Tommy Waters Zhou, 40, of Brooklyn, New York, were arrested in March on charges of trafficking illegally harvested undersized American eels. Elvers are what American eels are called in their initial life stage as they swim to fresh water from the Atlantic Ocean.
Austin entered a guilty plea to the charge this past summer and was ordered to forfeit $15,000 to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, according to the department’s release. Zhou, who also pleaded guilty this past summer, was ordered to forfeit $3,000 to the department.
Jomo Miller, spokesman for the New York state agency, declined Friday to release any additional information about the case.
Demand for elvers — which can be fished legally only in Maine and South Carolina — has spiked significantly in Asia in recent years, pushing catch totals higher and causing the price paid to fishermen to soar. The black market for poached baby eels has intensified as a result, at the same time that concerns have been raised about the overall health of American eel stocks.
In 2010, Maine fishermen on average were paid $185 per pound, but in 2011, that average jumped to just under $900 per pound. The annual average price for fishermen has wavered between about $900 and $2,000 per pound since then, with the average for the 2015 season topping out at $2,172.
Since 2011, Maine has implemented new management rules to help discourage and prevent poaching. Just last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced American eels will not be listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, which could have resulted in Maine’s elver fishery being shut down indefinitely.
Austin is not the only Maine resident facing elver-related charges in New York.
Frederick J. Moore III, chief of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik, also known as Pleasant Point, was arrested on Long Island in April 2014 after he and other men allegedly were observed harvesting elvers after dark from a creek in Southampton.
Moore has denied the allegations that he was fishing for elvers, saying that he was serving as a consultant with the Unkechaug Indian Nation, who live on Long Island. He has said that members of native Indian tribes have a sovereign right to fish for elvers and other traditionally targeted species, and that state government officials in and outside Maine do not have any authority to restrict that right.
Moore is scheduled to appear in Suffolk First District Court on the charges on Nov. 5, according to information posted online in the New York State Unified Court system database.
