State, tribe deal on elver licenses falls apart
The Maine Attorney General’s Office has quashed hopes for a tentative agreement between state regulators and Maine’s Native American tribes over issuance of fishing licenses for the lucrative baby eels called elvers, according to the Portland Press Herald.
With the state required by regional regulators to reduce next season’s elver catch by 35% and tribal authorities disputing the state’s right to regulate fishing practices on tribal land, both sides had viewed the agreement as a solution. But Patrick Keliher, head of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, told tribal members Wednesday that the LePage administration could not back the agreement endorsed by the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission because the state attorney general determined setting up separate rules for tribal and non-tribal fishermen would have violated the state constitution. The agreement would have allowed tribal fishermen to catch as much as they did last year, 1,650 pounds, and allocated the rest of the previously unrestricted catch to non-tribal fishermen.
The fishery, which was worth around $33 million last year, has become the state’s second-most lucrative fishery after lobster.
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