April 6, 2015 — Lawmakers took initial steps Monday to close what Maine officials described as the last major loophole in monitoring an elver fishery that included as much as $20 million in black market sales of baby eels in 2012.
Under a proposal unanimously endorsed by a legislative committee, Maine would begin licensing the companies or individuals exporting elvers – also known as glass eels – which can fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars a pound. The exporters would be required to use the same real-time monitoring and reporting system that has been widely credited with curtailing illegal activity among elver fishermen and dealers.
“What we are really talking about is creating a bulletproof chain of custody” for elvers caught in Maine and shipped overseas, said Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources, which requested the legislation.
The 2012 elver fishing season was a boom for Maine’s legitimate elver fishermen, and for poachers. The catch reported by the Department of Marine Resources was estimated at $40 million, with a pound of the translucent baby eels averaging more than $1,600. But Keliher told members of the Marine Resources Committee that the actual value of the fishery, accounting for black market sales, could have been as much as $60 million, based on investigations by state and federal agencies.
“There was a lot of illegal activity that year,” Keliher said afterward.
Since then, Maine has implemented a first-in-the-nation reporting system that allows the state to monitor each fisherman’s catch and each dealer’s purchases practically in real time. But exporters, who ship elvers to aquaculture operations in Asia, are not required to participate in that monitoring system.