Fishermen greet DFO baby eel licence plan with uncertainty

Fishermen employed by commercial licence holders to catch highly lucrative juvenile eels are trying to parse the implications of a new federal proposal that would give each of them a slice of the overall quota, but would slash it for the companies that have provided them with good-paying work.

The move is outlined in letters sent by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on Tuesday to licence holders and fishermen, and follows a number of chaotic years along Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rivers where the baby eels, also known as elvers, are fished.

The department is offering 120 fishermen currently employed by the eight commercial groups their own small licences for next year's season, in what the letters say is a bid to "broaden the distribution of benefits" of the fishery. It is also offering elver licences to 30 fishermen currently licensed to catch adult eels.

Austin Townsend, a 26-year-old elver fisherman from Lockeport, N.S., said while the proposal looks good for him on paper, he's suspicious of the "Robin Hood" tactic where quota is simply plucked from the commercial groups, and worries he could be worse off financially.

He said in a good season, he will make between $40,000 and $90,000 working for Shelburne Elver, which has the equipment to hold elvers and the networks to export them. But Townsend said if he goes it alone, he will still likely have to sell to a middleman who will take a cut.

"There's got to be someone that's buying them and making another dollar in between, right?" he said in an interview.

The spring elver fishery in the Maritimes has been marred in recent years by violence and widespread unauthorized fishing as prices soared due to demand from China, where the tiny eels are shipped live and raised in aquaculture facilities to adulthood for food.

The latest proposal by DFO follows another potential blow to commercial licence holders in June when the department said it was considering reallocating 50 per cent of the total quota — which has remained unchanged at 9,960 kilograms year — to First Nations. Some Mi'kmaq have claimed a treaty right to fish for elvers.

DFO declined an interview request about its plan to reallocate quota to individual fishermen. In a statement, it said the aim of the proposal is "to accommodate increased interest in participating in this high-value fishery."

Quotas for individual fishermen have not yet been set, but the department said a decision about the pilot project will be made before next year's season. Under the terms outlined in the DFO letter, only the person issued the licence would be able to fish it, and they would be restricted to certain rivers.

Robert Selig, a fisherman in Nova Scotia's Shelburne County, said some are in favour of the proposal. But he's unhappy with the uncertainty it brings, given it's not clear how much quota he will receive and he worries what will happen if prices nosedive. He said he instead wants a return to a "nice, safe, reliable fishery."

"I don't have any trust and I don't have any faith in DFO to manage this problem," he said.

The pilot project is being criticized by some current commercial licence holders who, for several years, have been at loggerheads with DFO, accusing the department of losing control of the fishery and of moving to cut their allocation of the overall quota with no compensation.

Stanley King, whose family operates the company Atlantic Elver Fishery, said his back-of-the-napkin math suggests that between First Nations and individual reallocations, commercial licence holders could lose 75 per cent of their quota next season.

"It's incredibly bad news for the industry," he told CBC Radio's Mainstreet. "We understand the minister's intent behind it, but it's clear that she doesn't understand the fishery very well."

David Scholten, who works for Atlantic Elver Fishery, said he's perplexed by DFO's move, and said it will disrupt a system built over three decades that takes eels caught in local rivers, keeps them healthy and ships them overseas.

"I just don't think that the decisions being made are taking into account the ecosystem of this industry," he said. "It's not just people throwing fish in buckets and then you're done. There's more to it than that."