Interstate regulators recently considered reducing the catch quota for juvenile eels in Maine by more than 20 percent — which would have meant much less income for fishermen — but they ultimately decided to leave the limits unchanged.
The catch quota for Maine’s juvenile eels, also known as elvers, will remain 9,688 pounds for 2025 and beyond, according to state officials. Had it been reduced by 21.8 percent, which the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission had been considering, elver fishermen stood to lose roughly $4 million statewide.
“That would have been an economic loss of millions of dollars for Maine’s elver fishery,” said Patrick Keliher, commissioner of Maine’s Department of Marine Resources.
The commission decided last week that Maine’s strict harvesting regulations, which track daily catches statewide through a swipe card system, support not reducing the catch quota, Keliher said. Biological surveys also show that Maine’s springtime elver population continues to be significantly higher than the number that are caught annually, he said.
“Bottom line, this is great news for a fishery that, last year, generated over $20 million dollars for fishermen,” Keliher said.
Maine’s elver fishery, held each spring as the juvenile eels swim upstream from the open ocean into freshwater rivers and streams, has become more economically important over the past 13 years as culinary demand for eels has soared but the global supply has decreased.
Maine’s elver fishery dates back decades and is the only significant fishery for juvenile eels in the country. The state has roughly 1,000 licensed elver fishermen and women.
Prior to 2011, when the export of eels from Europe was banned, Maine’s annual elver harvest never exceeded $4 million and frequently was less than $1 million. Since 2011, the value of the statewide elver harvest has averaged $17.5 million each year and, in four of the past six years, has exceeded $20 million.
Maine’s elver fishery hit a bonanza in 2012 and 2013, when demand had soared and there was no catch limit, enabling fishermen to catch roughly 20,000 pounds each year. But due to concerns about the declining numbers of American eels on the East Coast, and about a spike in poaching, the catch quota and Maine’s strict regulations for harvesters and dealers were imposed in 2014.
