January 26, 2015 — Maine fisheries regulators want to begin licensing elver exporters as part of the state’s effort to tighten oversight of a fishery in which a pound of the tiny, squirming eels can fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars.
The Maine Department of Marine Resources is preparing legislation that would require individuals who ship the baby eels overseas to purchase a $5,000 exporter’s license. The state already licenses both elver fishermen and dealers, so DMR officials said the exporter license will ensure the state is monitoring every aspect of an industry that has drawn poachers and federal scrutiny in recent years.
“We want to understand more closely what is going on in that next step of the commercial chain,” DMR spokesman Jeff Nichols said Friday of the bill, which will be considered in the current legislative session. “There is always a possibility (for fraud). But what we are trying to do is close as many loopholes as possible.”
Maine fishermen harvested nearly 9,700 pounds of elvers in 2014 worth an estimated $8.4 million, according to preliminary figures from DMR. Although down from roughly 18,000 pounds valued at $33 million the year before, the 2014 elver catch still translated into an average of $867 per pound for the translucent, noodle-like eels, which are netted as they swim upstream and then shipped to aquaculture operations in Asia.
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald