Canada: DFO's plan to save the eel fishery is criticized

After overseeing the downward spiral of Canada’s most profitable fishery into rampant poaching and violence, Fisheries and Oceans Canada is proposing a total overhaul of the 2025 elver harvest. Concerns are being raised about the pilot project’s viability without the enforcement that has been lacking over the past nine years, the precedent its redistribution sets for licence holders in other fisheries, its lack of being accompanied by a long-overdue decision on whether the American eel stock is listed under the Species at Risk Act and the proposed redistribution’s fairness to fishers of adult eels. “The focus for participants in the elver commercial licence pilot is to provide an opportunity for those with previous experience as elver harvesters to be allocated their own licence, as well as current large-eel licence holders who may be interested in relinquishing their existing licence,” reads an Oct. 15 letter to commercial licence holders. “It is currently proposed to provide ...