PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Fishermen who harvest one of the vital worthwhile marine species within the U.S. hoped for permission to catch extra child eels subsequent 12 months, however regulators stated Monday the tight restrictions which have been in place for a number of years are more likely to keep the identical.
The tiny child eels, that are often worth more than $2,000 per pound, are additionally known as elvers. They’re a critically vital hyperlink within the worldwide provide chain for Japanese meals. They’re harvested from rivers and streams in Maine, bought to aquaculture corporations and raised to maturity, then resold as meals.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Fee must set a brand new quota for subsequent 12 months and past as a result of the present administration plan is expiring. The fee stated Monday it is solely contemplating one possibility for subsequent 12 months’s restrict and that may be a little lower than 10,000 kilos (4,535 kilograms), the identical the extent fishermen have been allowed to catch for a number of years.
The fee is underneath strain from fishermen who need the quota raised and from environmentalists who want to see it decreased.
Fishermen who’ve advocated for eradicating dams are good stewards of the elvers, stated Darrell Younger, president of the Maine Elver Fishermen’s Affiliation. Many fishermen run by way of their quota in only a few days, he stated.
“That tells you the way thick the eels are. Overabundant,” Younger stated. “That may give us leg to face on to get extra quota.”
The fee’s eel administration board additionally nonetheless must determine the variety of years the brand new quota ranges would stay in place, it stated in a press release. The board will maintain a public listening to in regards to the matter on Feb. 29, it stated.
Over time, members of the Atlantic States fee and different regulators have voiced concern in regards to the decline of worldwide eel populations and the specter of poaching. Maine regulators have responded by implementing new controls to deter illegal fishing.
The eel fishing season happens every spring and Maine is the one U.S. state with a big, authorized fishery for elvers. Final 12 months’s harvest was value about $2,031 per pound, orders of magnitude greater than lobsters or scallops.
