Tribe agrees to elver terms; fishing season starts
The Passamaquoddy Tribe announced Friday that it would institute individual elver catch quotas for tribal fishermen, ending a conflict with state regulators before the season that began Sunday.
The Associated Press reported the Joint Tribal Council voted Thursday to amend tribal law to accept the individual quotas for its elver fishermen, a restriction that conflicts with the tribe’s belief that natural resources belong to all its members. Indian Township Chief Joseph Socobasin told the AP that the tribal council did not consider ignoring state law. It considered whether to obey state-ordered quotas or not to fish at all.
The state instituted the catch quotas for the valuable baby eels to meet a requirement from regional regulators to reduce the total elver harvest by 35%.
Non-tribal fishermen are adhering to individual quotas for the first time this year, using a new swipe card system that the Portland Press Herald reported will provide a test run for using electronic monitoring systems for other fisheries in the state and elsewhere.
The price for elvers soared as high as $2,600 per pound last year, driven mostly by consumer demand in Japan. Jeff Pierce, with the Maine Elver Fisherman Association, told the newspaper that prices for this season remain unknown and may be driven down by other countries that opened elver fishing for the first time this year.
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