'Free rein' on waters with baby eels must stop, say critics

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The baby eel industry in the Maritimes is demanding a meeting with the federal fisheries minister, who they insist could still salvage their harvesting season after shuttering it last month.

The Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery, which represents several commercial harvesters, blames Ottawa for not enforcing the rules on the waters, where mayhem has broken out the last few seasons in both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Worried about the health of the stocks of baby American eels, or elvers, and the threat of further violence, Minister Diane Lebouthillier cancelled the 2024 season. She said her department had to properly assess the situation and come up with new measures to ensure the sustainability of the harvest, with a possible restart in 2025.

But the commercial harvesters who employ 1,100 people insist the short spring season can still be salvaged if the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO, and RCMP continue to enforce the existing rules.

“The minister has simply refused to meet with any commercial elver fisher since being appointed to the portfolio, and this despite the fact she – and her parliamentary secretary – has now met with Indigenous fishers,” said the committee’s president Genna Carey in a press release last week. “Elver fishers – commercial and Indigenous – agree that there is still time to have a legal season. Waters are still high and the elver run is just starting.”

Moreover, Carey said DFO had been conducting enforcement, issuing several media releases detailing arrests and the confiscation of gear and vehicles of alleged poachers.

“Clearly no new regulations were needed. And having legal fishers – the stewards of the fishery for 30 plus years – on the water would only mean more vigilant eyes.”

The translucent, young creatures, nicknamed glass eels, drift into river estuaries of the region by the hundreds of thousands from the ocean in the early spring for several weeks, sometimes until mid-May or early June.

Their popularity in Asia, where they are raised to adulthood in tanks and then served in a variety of dishes, has led to a surge in prices. So has their threatened status. In Europe, where eels are on the brink of extinction, the black-market price has skyrocketed. No one has successfully created a hatchery for eels and raised them in a similar way to farmed salmon.

With prices going as high as $5,000 a kilogram, poachers began hitting Maritime rivers the last several years, with enforcement spotty at best.

“Without meeting industry, we are afraid they do not have a complete picture for making decisions,” Carey said. “We would be happy to meet with any of them any time.”

But the minister’s press secretary said on Monday she had already consulted with the industry in the lead up to her decision to close the fishery.

“The minister received hundreds of pages of submissions during the consultation period that were carefully reviewed,” said Jérémy Collard in an email. “The minister’s office and Parliamentary Secretary Mike Kelloway also conducted their own consultation meetings, many occurring well past the formal end of the consultation period to accommodate licence holders, Indigenous communities, and stakeholders. The consultation and reflection period lasted for nearly a month, which reflects the fact that the minister and DFO took their time to consult and reflect on what they had heard before the minister took her final decision.”

The impasse has made its way to Ottawa, where Parliamentarians who belong to the standing committee on fisheries and oceans debated the idea of calling upon the minister to re-open the harvest and increase enforcement.

They keep closing the fishery, thinking that will take poachers off the river when all it does is allow for free rein.

Rick Perkins

It met three times this month to hear from industry officials and discuss ways to stop the violence on the water. Last Thursday, however, the discussion about the eels quickly became heated along party lines, with the Conservatives pushing for a resumption of the season and the Liberal majority stating it would be premature.

Kelloway, a Liberal MP from Cape Breton, argued the fishery was difficult to manage.

“It’s issues like nighttime fishing, and the sheer amount of rivers in Nova Scotia that have to be patrolled on a daily basis,” he said. “And the danger for law enforcement, what they have to go through.”

But Conservative MP Clifford Small of Newfoundland said it wasn’t like the number of rivers or daylight hours had changed over the 30 odd years since the industry had started.

“I understand Mr. Kelloway’s point of view. He’s here to protect his minister. We’re here on this side to stand up for the elver harvesters.”

This led to Kelloway interrupting, countering that the committee wasn’t supposed to be partisan.

“When you defame the person, your argument is toast!”

Rick Perkins, the Conservative MP from Halifax, accused the Liberals of incompetence.

“Liberal fisheries minister number six is doing as good a job as Liberal four and five on this,” he said, a reference to the many politicians who have led the department during the Trudeau administration. “Number four, number five and number six have screwed up this fishery for 10 years, increasing poaching, and they keep trying the same thing, over and over again and expecting a different result. They keep closing the fishery, thinking that will take poachers off the river when all it does is allow for free rein.”