Baby eels worth $112K seized at Halifax airport

Authorities seized a shipment of baby eels, or elvers, at Halifax Stanfield International Airport last week as part of an ongoing investigation into the lucrative but increasingly troubled fishery.

Federal fishery officers intercepted 25 kilograms of elvers worth about $112,000 on April 5, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) said in a statement to CBC News. The seizure followed an inspection.

DFO said the seized elvers were sold. The proceeds are being held pending the outcome of the investigation. If there is a conviction, they will be forfeited to the Crown. If not, they will be returned to defendant.

Spokesperson Lauren Sankey said the case remains under investigation.

Baby eels are the most valuable fish species by weight in Canada and were worth over $5,000 per kilogram in 2022.

They are flown live to Asia where they are raised to adulthood for food.

The tiny, translucent juvenile American eels, also known as glass eels, are harvested each spring from rivers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. There is also a fishery in Maine. The Maritime fishery is worth about $40 million a year.

This is not the first seizure at the Halifax airport. DFO seized 18 kilograms of elvers worth $90,000 at the Halifax airport in May 2022.

A troubled fishery

News of the recent airport seizure is the latest development in a fishery that has been marred in recent years by riverside threats and conflict among authorized harvesters and those who are not.

On Wednesday Conservative MPs Rick Perkins and Clifford Small issued a release demanding DFO stop what they call the "unprecedented levels of poaching" underway this season.

Citing reports from fishing communities, the MPs said there are unlicensed commercial harvesters operating in western and southern Nova Scotia from not only Nova Scotia but also Maine, Quebec and New Brunswick.

Perkins represents the riding of South Shore-St. Margarets in Nova Scotia, and Small, from Newfoundland and Labrador, is the party's fishery critic.

"Illegal harvesting is happening on rivers that are both designated and not designated as licensed elver fishery rivers by DFO. Illegally overfishing of elvers will reduce the sustainability of both baby eels and adult eels," Perkins and Small said in their statement.

"To date, there is no presence of DFO Conservation and Protection (C&P) enforcement on any of the rivers in this area. The lack of enforcement is encouraging poaching of this fishery…There is no excuse for the lack of DFO C&P presence, given that this region of Nova Scotia has five times as many C&P personnel per square kilometre as the remainder of the Atlantic region."

DFO says it has stepped up enforcement at riverside hotspots and at airports in Canada. Minister Joyce Murray's office says in recent days, there have been numerous riverside arrests and seizures related to the elver fishery.

"Fishery officers continue to conduct operational patrols focused on the elver fishery in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick," Sankey said.

"Any harvesting of elver taking place without a licence, or in contravention of a DFO-issued licence, is unauthorised and subject to enforcement action."

Flash point over Mi'kmaw treaty rights

Under fishery rules, each commercial elver licence specifies the assigned rivers where harvesting may occur. Only one licence holder is licensed to fish in a particular river for the duration of the fishing season.

There are eight commercial elver licences in the Maritimes and one communal commercial licence, held by the We'koqma'q First Nation in Cape Breton.

DFO has also reached what it calls understandings with two First Nations groups authorizing commercial elver fishing in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

The fishery has become a flash point for Mi'kmaw bands exercising treaty rights to fish for a moderate livelihood.

In 2020, DFO shut down the entire Maritime elver fishery after a five-fold influx of Mi'kmaw harvesters appeared mostly on Nova Scotia rivers.

"This level of fishing, in addition to the commercial fishery, has become unmanageable and represents a threat to the conservation of the species," then-deputy minister Tim Sargent wrote in a 2020 DFO briefing note obtained by CBC.

In 2022 and 2023, DFO took 1,200 kilograms, or 14 per cent, of the commercial quota and gave it to First Nations groups in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to advance Indigenous treaty rights to earn a moderate living.

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