US: Eels for $2,000 a pound hope for many years of fishing

Fresh Whole Eel

Seafood

United States

Market & Price Trends

Published Mar 14, 2024

Tridge summary

Baby eels, known as elvers, are the most valuable fish in the U.S., fetching over $2,000 per pound. Maine is the only state with a significant elver catch and there have been concerns about potential cuts to the strict quota system. However, a regulatory board has proposed a plan to maintain the current quota of less than 10,000 pounds a year indefinitely. The eels are sold to Asian aquaculture companies as seed stock and some are returned to the U.S. as sushi. The state awards elver licenses through a lottery system, with over 4,500 applicants for just 16 licenses this year.

Disclaimer: The above summary was generated by a state-of-the-art LLM model and is intended for informational purposes only. It is recommended that readers refer to the original article for more context.

Original content

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — They’re wriggly, they’re gross and they’re worth more than $2,000 a pound. And soon, fishermen might be able to catch thousands of pounds of them for years to come. Baby eels, also called elvers, are likely the most valuable fish in the United States on a per-pound basis - worth orders of magnitude more money at the docks than lobsters, scallops or salmon. That’s because they’re vitally important to the worldwide supply chain for Japanese food. The tiny fish, which weigh only a few grams, are harvested by fishermen using nets in rivers and streams. The only state in the country with a significant elver catch is Maine, where fishermen have voiced concerns in recent months about the possibility of a cut to the fishery’s strict quota system. But an interstate regulatory board that controls the fishery has released a plan to potentially keep the elver quota at its current level of a little less than 10,000 pounds a year with no sunset date. Fishermen who have ...

Source: AP