They are wriggly, they are gross and they are worth more than US$2,000 a pound. Soon, fishers 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 US on a per-pound basis — worth orders of magnitude more money at the docks than lobsters, scallops or salmon. That is because they are vitally important to the worldwide supply chain for Japanese food.
The tiny fish, which weigh only a few grams, are harvested by fishers using nets in rivers and streams. The only state in the country with a significant elver catch is Maine, where fishers have voiced concerns in the past few months about the possibility of a cut to the fishery’s strict quota system.
Photo: AP
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 (4,536kg) a year with no sunset date.
Fishers who have spent years touting the sustainability of the fishery are pulling for approval, Maine Elver Fishermen Association director Darrell Young said.
“Just let ‘er go and let us fish,” Young said. “They should do that because we’ve done everything they’ve asked, above and beyond.”
Photo: AP
A board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is scheduled to vote on a new quota system for the eel fishery on May 1. The board could also extend the current quota for three years.
The eels are sold as seed stock to Asian aquaculture companies that raise them to maturity so they can be used as food, such as kabayaki, a dish of marinated, grilled eel. Some of the fish eventually return to the US where they are sold at sushi restaurants.
The eels were worth US$2,009 a pound last year — more than 400 times more than lobster, Maine’s signature seafood. The state has had an elver fishery for decades, but its eels became more valuable in the early 2010s, in part, because foreign sources dried up.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the European eel as more critically endangered than the US eel, although some environmental groups have pushed for greater conservation in the US.
Since booming in value, elvers have become the second-most valuable fish species in Maine in terms of total value. The state has instituted numerous new controls to try to thwart poaching, which has emerged as a major concern as the eels have increased in value.
The elver quota remaining at current levels reflects “strong management measures we’ve instituted here in Maine,” Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher said.
A quota cut “could have been a loss of millions of dollars in income for Maine’s elver industry,” he said.
This year’s elver season starts next week. Catching the elvers is difficult and involves setting up large nets in Maine’s cold rivers and streams at predawn hours.
That has not stopped new fishers from trying their hand in the lucrative business. The state awards to right to apply for an elver license through a lottery, and this year more than 4,500 applicants applied for just 16 available licenses.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors