March 8, 2022 — Spring’s arrival will mean the reappearance of tiny baby eels in Maine’s estuaries — and of intrepid fishermen up before dawn hoping to net allowable quotas for excellent prices.
The baby eels are called “elvers” and they’ve been drifting northward since late winter from the Sargasso Sea, a region of the western Atlantic Ocean, south of Bermuda, where they were born. Their mission is to make it safely to inland waters and grow into adult eels.
At noon on March 22, a short harvest season will open that allows 425 Maine-based fishermen to net small amounts of elvers, most of which will be sold to Far East markets, where elvers are cultured and reared to adult size for the food fish market.
With elvers selling for $1,800 per pound in 2021, licenses are highly coveted, and fishermen hang onto them.
That’s why, when the Maine Department of Marine Resources opened a lottery for 13 licenses that became earlier this year, there were over 2,600 applicants.