Tag Archives: Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery
Maritime elver fishery closure penalizes legal fishers, committee hears
The committee heard from the Canada Border Services Agency, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the RCMP, the Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery, and a legal elver fisherman with Shelburne Elver. “I lost my partner to cancer a few months ago,” Zachary Townsend, the elver fisherman, told the committee. “It’s been hard and unbearable at times. But to now be unemployed and facing an uncertain financial future is simply a challenge I didn’t need. “And I don’t share such sad news to vote your pity, but instead to remind you that each of us 1,100 [Maritime elver fishers] has a story and a unique set of circumstances now made worse by the minister.” The elver fishing season was cancelled in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick after Fisheries and Oceans Canada admitted it couldn’t control poaching or the export of baby eels, which sell for thousands of dollars a kilogram. more. >>click to read<< 16:42
Canada proposes shutdown of troubled Maritime elver fishery in 2024
The federal government has served notice it intends to close the commercial fishery for baby eels, or elvers, in the Maritimes this year — six weeks before the season is set to open. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Diane Lebouthillier informed licence holders Tuesday and gave them until Feb. 23 to respond. Lebouthillier said there was not enough time for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to implement enhanced “access for Indigenous communities, a new regulatory framework to regulate and licence the possession and export of elvers, and a suite of operational changes to the management of the elver fishery.” “Based on all the above, it is my view that it is not possible to have a safe and sustainable elver fishery in 2024, and therefore the fishery should not be opened,” Lebouthillier wrote. more, >>click to read<< 16:46
