2012 Maine elver season netted nearly $38 million, second only to lobster

[jpak]

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/02/28/news/hancock/2012-maine-elver-season-netted-nearly-38-million-second-only-to-lobster-in-fishery-value/

ELLSWORTH, Maine — Maine’s Department of Marine Resources has released updated 2012 landings figures that confirm what many people already knew, if only unofficially: the value of the state’s elver fishery shot up significantly last year.

The official preliminary tally of last year’s elver season, which ran from late March through the end of May, indicates that elver fishermen earned a cumulative total of nearly $38 million in 2012, which is approximately five times the cumulative total of $7.6 million that they got for their catch the year before.

<snip>

Due to tumult in the lobster market, however, the average price lobster fishermen earned for their catch last year was $2.69 per pound, the lowest annual price they have received since 1994.

The price spike for elvers has been attributed to demand in the Far East, where a massive tsunami in March 2011 wiped out stockpiles of eels that were being cultivated in Japanese aquaculture ponds for the region’s seafood markets. After averaging $185 per pound for their catch in 2010, elver fishermen in Maine averaged just under $2,000 per pound for the entire 10-week season last year.

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Bye Bye

[Bay Boy]

1. WTH?!

They are harvesting elves in Maine? Sick bastards. Especially with St Patrick's Day right around the corner.
(I've never heard of an elver so I assume this was a typo)

[Hard Assets]

2. They tooking about dis...

[NWHarkness]

3. Elvers are baby eels

They are a popular food item in Asia. The Japanese tsunami wiped out the industry there, so prices here skyrocketed. Where I live in mid coast Maine, there we eel nets up everywhere, and local fishermen made a killing on them.

[Bay Boy]

4. Interesting...

...here in Michigan we have a problem with lamprey eels. I wonder if they have any market value in Japan?

[jpak]

6. Lampreys are eaten in Europe - but beware

King Henry I died of a "surfeit of lampreys".

I can't remember the name of the toxin they carry - but if you eat enough of them..

It's curtains...

[Bay Boy]

7. Well then we'll serve up a big ole platter of 'em

the next time the Repubs meet up for dinner.

[Demeter]

5. Lobster runs $13/lb live in Michigan

Even if they were hand-carried, it can't cost THAT much to ship them 850 miles....