ELLSWORTH, Maine — It may have to go up quite a ways more before it compares to gold or saffron, but the price of elvers sure has come a long way in the past two years.
According to officials with Maine’s Department of Marine Resources, the first day of the state’s 2012 elver fishing season on Thursday saw some fishermen getting as much as $2,200 per pound.
Compare that with the 2010 elver fishing season, when the average price fishermen got for juvenile eels was $185 per pound. Between 1994 and 2010, the highest average price for their catch that elver fishermen received in any year was $346 per pound in 2007.
Then last year, it jumped. Demand for the eels, which are shipped live to the Far East and then raised to adult size before being sold in seafood markets, reached unprecedented highs, causing the average price for the season to increase to nearly $900 per pound, according to DMR statistics. In some areas last year the price was reported to be more than $1,000 per pound.
At noon Thursday, when Maine’s spring elver season officially opened, it went up again. According to some reports, one dealer in the Ellsworth area was offering $1,500 per pound on opening day. In the midcoast region, some were offering more than that.
Sgt. Marlowe Sonksen of Maine Marine Patrol, DMR’s law enforcement division, said Friday that officers in the Knox and Waldo county region heard that at least one midcoast dealer was offering $2,200 per pound.
“One [fisherman] told us that’s what he got,” Sonksen said.
Elvers are juvenile eels that are born in the Sargasso Sea region of the Atlantic Ocean and then migrate to North American freshwater lakes and rivers. Elvers generally are caught at night in tidal rivers and streams by fishermen using funnel-shaped fyke nets or small, hand-dip nets mounted at the end of poles.
During this elver season, fishing is allowed five days a week, from noon Sunday until noon Friday of each week. Elver fishermen have been known to catch several pounds in a single night.
Since 2006, the number of elver licenses issued by the state has been limited to several hundred at most in order to protect the elver population. In 2011 and again this year, the number of licenses is capped at 407.
According to DMR officials, the high price of elvers has generated a lot of interest and more illegal fishing by unlicensed fishermen. Before the season opened, there were people out trying to catch elvers without being noticed by marine patrol officers, they said.
“A lot of our violations now are unlicensed people” using hand-dip nets, Sonksen said. Fyke nets, which Sonksen said are bigger and tend to catch “a lot more” elvers than hand-dip nets, have to be tagged with the name of their licensed owners and so generally aren’t used by unlicensed fishermen.
Sonksen, who oversees officers operating along the midcoast between the St. George and Penobscot rivers, said that only one day into the season his officers already have written between eight and 10 citations total for illegal elver fishing. That estimate, he added, is higher than normal. Statewide, the number of summons written so far this elver season is around 20, he added.
Lt. Dale Sprowl, who oversees marine patrol operations in the eastern half of the state, said Friday that officers also check on dealers to make sure they only buy elvers from licensed fishermen. He said Maine Marine Patrol makes unannounced spot checks on dealers and reviews their paperwork to make sure they are complying with the state’s regulations.
“We already checked some dealers today,” Sprowl said.
Some environmentalists have raised concerns that the population of the eels has been declining and say the eels should be protected by federal regulations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been petitioned to list eels either as threatened or endangered, which would prevent them from being fished.
According to Dr. Gail Wippelhauser of the Department of Marine Resources, no such designation is expected to be made before the end of the elver season on May 31.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.
Happy for you elvers hopefully the eviroterrorists don’t screw it up for you folks.
yeah, because we don’t need to worry about overfishing or any of that science type stuff. Screw the next generation, I got mine!
You can never overfish without putting fisherman out of business.. Just can’t happen.. If there is not enough fish to catch due to overfishing, fishermen got bankrupt and out of business, thus the cycle starts over, the fish replenish due to the lack of fishermen..
Or go extinct…
For a species that breeds in the Sargasso and has to run a gauntlet to get to freshwater to live it’s life until it’s ready to head back to sea to run another gauntlet of dangers. Over fishing could prove detrimental just the one time for certain regions. What would happen if you remove the parent stock from a river is there any guarantee that young from other parents will find their way to that river? I don’t know enough about the life cycle or habits of eels to know the answer to that one. But it is something to think about. Salmon and I’m sure other fish return to their natal rivers and streams, but if you remove all the fish that would go back there, you don’t have any fish that will ever return, and have thus effectively made a local population extinct.
WOW, 407 people are going to bring this about?
Can this be brought about, you ask, keek669? Yes, of course, the species could go nearly extinct, or even extinct if enough are taken.
Why is the price so high? Are there already shortages of eels in their usual habitats?
My feeling is that people should be able to raise or hunt the food they need in their own regions of the world. Why are we risking an entire species to feed the particular eating habits of the Japanese?
Oh, I keep forgetting, it’s all about the money.
Perhaps the Japanese, for one, ought to limit the number of children people have, as China has done, so that they can produce enough food to feed themselves on their many islands.
I’m not a fan of shipping our natural resources far away until the needs of Maine people are met first.
It’s like the Chinese-owned pulp mill in Baileyville (Washington County), which doesn’t make paper, but smashes up our woods, then bleaches the pulp with chlorine-based chemicals (leading to dioxins in the St. Croix River), and then ships the pulp out of Eastport all the way to China.
So we’re left with toxic chemicals in our rivers and streams and lakes and coastal waters, while the Chinese take the profits wherever they take them.
If the world’s various regions cannot sustain themselves without extensive imports, then what will they do when oil gets really expensive and/or in short supply? It won’t be pretty.
i agree with you the only reason the price is high is the asians dont have sources, that should be a tell be we as humans will seek a buck first
yes get educated , 407 people will catch a majority of the age class the put in nets on each side only those swimming in the middel get through and by nature they tend to swim to the side
“Get Educated”, Hummm, Seems to me Some think they know everything.
He’s right about the path they take, if the majority of the eels traveled up the center where do you think the nets would be, at that price it’d be worth any damage to the net on the haul of fish alone. But where would you swim int he strongest part of the current or the weakest, they know what they are doing and how to get the most for their set up.
OK.
Some know nothing, refuse to learn, and are proud of it.
Happy that’s not you or I.
This fishery is heavily regulated. There are regulations about how many hours the nets can stay in at one time. Also there are 407 licenses for the entire State of Maine. If you want a license you have to wait for at least 5(and I think it is actaully 8) people to give up their licenses before you can get yours.
yes genius becuase the resource is depleting
if haqlf wits like wipplehauser cared she would call for a moratorium
It is a sustainable resource if it is used appropriately, but with out oversight which everyone complains about even though they know without it things would go down the drain pretty quick. Can’t just go all out, it’s bad for the population and it can’t replenish itself if that happens.
The price per pound will destroy this fishery.
Greed – not “enviroterrorists” will be its downfall.
yessah
nossah — the enviroterrorists cannot stand any kind of economic independence.
Extinction will cure yer “economic independence” real fast.
The real ecoterrorists will kill of the elver fishery.
yessah
nossah 407 permits.
Do you think scarcity may be driving up the cost per pound? If these were plentiful the cost per pound would not have gone up nearly 700% over a few years. You may not have to worry about the “eviroterrorists” (sic) screwing it up, they may very well do it themselves.
I don’t worry about any of it .
The fact that there is huge demand for these eels in Spain, France and the Far East is what drives the demand. These elvers show up for the most part in one area, here on coastal Maine. Nearly 100 % of the supply for the demand is harvested in Maine waters. I think Maine Marine Resources is doing a very good job at making sure this fishery does not get depleted.
One thing to also take into account is the nuclear and tidal disaster in Japan which has put domestic eel harvesting in that country on its knees, if not flat on its rear.
maine marine resources is absolutely not doing a good job , havent for years , i absolutely know that as fact
yeah because catching the young that wont be breeding age for at least 25 years will help the future . Quick buck today none tomorrow
407 permits .407 people making a living is not gonna destroy the population, nice scare tactics though .
Forget about winning the lottery. When I grow up, I want to be an Elver fisherman.
Then you will pretty much have to win the lottery.
There’s always a string attached! I’d probably have a better chance getting hired as a CEO and wait for my golden parachute.
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been petititioned to list eels either as threatened or endangered, which would prevent them from being fished.”
gee, why is that not a surprise. it’s all about jurisdiction and expanding the regulatory reach with these people
I think you may be a bit confused. It was an NGO that petitioned the USFW for a listing, they are just conducting surveys at this time to determine the strength of the population. What is likely to happen is that enforcement of any rules and regs will stay with the DMR, but with any changes that come from up top. It’s not all about jurisdiction it’s about keeping regulation so you don’t wipe it all out. That is what will happen if they are allowed to fish and fish with no oversight. People are quick to cry foul when regulations, rules, and all manner of conservation stuff comes up, but when they see only a fraction of the catch they used to get they expect someone else to fix it.
That sounds like a one size fits all knee-jerk boilerplate reaction that reflects a need to dig at anything to to with governance. Very tea party-like. Very angry, low information, very sad.
A $2000/lb price tag will kill this industry in a couple of years.
TAX THE ELVERS! yes it should be a proactive, oh wait we have a Republican governor and a majority Republican legislature…………congratulations to the working man who catches elvers……lucky for you there isn’t a Democract governor in the Blaine House you won’t realize it now but come April 15, 2013 you will because your taxes due will be lower thanks to the Republicans in Maine anyway.
By .55 of one percent.
Gee, thanks. I’d pay the extra .55 percent in exchange for not having Mr. LePage represent our state.
lol
Mainers love to deplete and destroy fisheries. That fisherman’s greed must be in all Mainers blood. Fish till there is no fish left they say. The Asians destroyed their elver fisheries long long ago. Now it is Maine’s turn.
Well lets be a little more realistic, the world likes to deplete it’s fish stocks to detrimental lows.
Sounds like another tidbit of “wisdom” from the great state of Northern Massachusetts.
Do you not think that is the mind set out there, even the fishermen know it is. It is a take take take mentality out there, the more you can get the more money you can make, and no one cares as long as they are making money. Everyone complains about regulation, but when the fishery collapses everyone complains that there aren’t any fish. I have lived in Downeast Maine and have spent plenty of time up North by the way.
Math. 1lb=$2000
10lbs=$20.000
100lbs=$200,000
1000lbs=$2,000.000
After being schooled by some of the posters I’m thinking ,Thats a lot of money. and greed could set in… Work hard for a couple of months and and you could become a multi millonaire..
If you had a license what would you do?? I would fish until they told me I couldn’t anymore.. Human nature..
It’s not the people who have the permit/license that you need to worry about, it’s all the other people fishing illegally that you have to worry about, can’t catch em all!
In most of Europe, it’s dip nets only. NO FYKE NETS. That may be a good answer here as well. Lots more eels get bye and it may allow DMR to increase license sales and allow more people into the fishery while allowing more eels to make it upstream to mature. I know the guys with the big nets will not like this idea.
The price is HIGH because they are going EXTINCT… A moratorium must be placed on the fishery for a few years so they can recover…
Chicken farms.
Pig farms.
Salmon farms.
Why not an eel farm ??
Because they have not been successful in getting eels to reproduce in captivity. This is why they are caught as elvers and sent to farms to be raised to market size.
I’m in the wrong business!
Does anyone think that perhaps the Factory Ships from other countries with their miles wide nets stretching accross the Oceans might have something to do with depleting the fish population? Are They even regulated?
Best elvers ever? Francine Bistro in Camden!
Remember what happened to the unregulated sea urchin fishery? It was raped to near extinction because of the high prices being paid by the asian market. There is a reason the price is 2K per pound. The demand outweighs the supply. This fishery will be destroyed in short order and it won’t be the eco-terrorists that destroy it.
Looks like we may need to start a zoo for the fishes in the sea before we’ve eaten every last one. It’s the death knell of a species when the price skyrockets like that. We know so little about the mysterious lives of eels, but we sure know how to catch them.
Asians will eat anything….
Eels are eaten all over the world, I’ve had them and they are a good dish. Granted in the far east there are many strange dishes, but the same can be said in other parts of the world. Shouldn’t knock it until you try it.
Catch the Elvers, Feed them to Spotted Owls in Washington, Then Cut Down the Tree They are in.