Tag Archives: Bill Sheldon
Catch of the Night
The American eel’s lifestyle is as elusive as it gets. No one has seen one mate in the Sargasso Sea, the eel’s birthplace. However, we know that after hatching, eels begin their journey to land by following the Antilles Current and Gulf Stream toward the mouths of North American rivers. Elvers (juvenile specimens also known as glass eels) then venture inland, mature, and later return to the ocean to mate, with the entire process ranging from a few months to a few years in duration. The unfortunate truth is that eel populations worldwide are rapidly declining. They have faced overfishing since the 1970s, resulting in poaching regulations in most of the world. Today, just two US states award eel fishing licenses: South Carolina and Maine. Because South Carolina only allows traps for fully grown eels, Maine has become the heart of the elver issue. more, >>click to read<< By Phil Avilov10:31
Maine elver king to plead guilty to trafficking in poached elver eels
The man regarded as the founder of Maine’s elver fishery will plead guilty to violating federal law by trafficking in more than half a million dollars worth of poached baby eels. Bill Sheldon and federal prosecutors reached the agreement on Sunday. Sheldon has waived his right to appeal any sentence that includes a prison term of 30 months or less. Sheldon bought elvers, or baby eels, that he knew had been caught in New Jersey and Virginia, where the fishery is banned, prosecutors have said.,, Sheldon, 71, of Woolwich, is scheduled to appear in federal court in Portland at 12:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 5, to formally enter his guilty plea. click here to read the story 14:37
Inside the Multi-million-Dollar World of Eel Trafficking
The alleged kingpin of one of the biggest domestic wildlife smuggling operations ever to hit the East Coast is exactly where you’d expect to find him on a rainy evening in early May: firmly planted in a swivel chair at a big green metal desk inside his renovated Quonset hut on Foster Street, in Ellsworth, Maine. At this post Bill Sheldon waits day and night for fishermen to come and fill his bowl with writhing masses of baby eels. The 72-year-old fisherman wears glasses, a blue flannel shirt, jeans, duck boots, and a brown L.L. Bean baseball cap. His cell phone goes quack, quack, quack when it rings. The sign above his head reads, “Buying Glass Eels Here,” with the day’s market price: $1,250 per pound. (so much more about the fishery in this article than “trafficking”) click here to read the story 09:26
