Interesting article about eels..

[bulletbob]

https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AlUi0SA5gOX__WFwTZpFgsKbvZx4?p=eels+in +decline&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-310

Its a few years old, but its really good, and kind of distressing... It mirrors what is happening in many fisheries... Greed, and an insatiable appetite among sushi lovers...
An eel was caught here in the susquehanna a few years ago here in NY, and it was such a rare event, it made the local paper.. So sad.. there used to be a lot of them in Cayuga Lake.. No one has seen one in many years,,,
I am beginning to hate sushi..... bob

[dakota560]

There's a show on, not sure what channel, about catching juvenile eels in Maine. It's an extremely lucrative business for only those fortunate enough who have permits. They net elvers at night and believe the entire season is only about a month long. Like everything else it seems, the eels are shipped somewhere overseas and farm raised until they attain a larger size and are eaten as a delicacy. The middleman on the few shows I watched was paying $2,000 a pound so you can imagine what the ultimate consumer is paying and what the middleman buyer here is making in profits. One team, three guys, said they made about $600,000 last year for as I said I believe one month's worth of work. There is absolutely no way a species / fish can have that price tag on it's head and survive. It's all about money and greed and when that fishery is gone they'll move on to the next fishery, if there's any left.

Unless politicians are effected by our concerns. nothing will change. They do as they wish because they can get away with it. Even when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, nothing happens so what is their impetus to change?

If the states and activist groups don't get together and we don't hold our public officials accountable status quo will be the norm. It's that simple. The eel is just another casualty of this massively broken process with greed trumping logic and protection of a valuable resource.

Dakota

[bulletbob]

There's a show on, not sure what channel, about catching juvenile eels in Maine. It's an extremely lucrative business for only those fortunate enough who have permits. They net elvers at night and believe the entire season is only about a month long. Like everything else it seems, the eels are shipped somewhere overseas and farm raised until they attain a larger size and are eaten as a delicacy. The middleman on the few shows I watched was paying $2,000 a pound so you can imagine what the ultimate consumer is paying and what the middleman buyer here is making in profits. One team, three guys, said they made about $600,000 last year for as I said I believe one month's worth of work. There is absolutely no way a species / fish can have that price tag on it's head and survive. It's all about money and greed and when that fishery is gone they'll move on to the next fishery, if there's any left.

Unless politicians are effected by our concerns. nothing will change. They do as they wish because they can get away with it. Even when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, nothing happens so what is their impetus to change?

If the states and activist groups don't get together and we don't hold our public officials accountable status quo will be the norm. It's that simple. The eel is just another casualty of this massively broken process with greed trumping logic and protection of a valuable resource.

Dakota

I saw that program,,, I do believe it was Nova on PBS... It was sad to watch..
In the article I posted there was an interesting observation.. How eels were doing better in their "home" areas closer to the spawning grounds..

Yet, the areas that weren't "prime range", areas that the eels had to travel to get to, were hit hard...
I think about our own whiting ,cod stocks.. yeah they are doing better in areas close to the "prime range", but the areas that are at the outer edges of their range suffer from lack of fish..
Eels being scarce really scares me.. If we can deplete those fish, there is NOTHING we can't kill off for a buck.

I fear for the future of salt water sport fishing, I really do.. I am more convinced than ever the culprits are the "overseas markets" , not to mention demand for live fish, or anything thats fit for sushi and sashimi .. They killed and ate everything in their own waters, and pay stupid money nowadays to get ours, or whats left of ours.. Maybe I'm just a racist, I dunno... bob

[dakota560]

It all comes down to exploitation of the resource and there's always money in the middle of these matters. No different than years ago when the US opened up our off shore waters to foreign fleets which decimated mackerel and cod. If I'm not mistaken, there's an area known as the Red Square because of the number of Soviet Fleets which could be found working those waters while the treaty was in place.

Unfortunately we view the future of these resources as a item of significance but in reality it becomes a bargaining chip for our own governments greedy politician to use to their personal advantage. Do you honestly think there's a relative number of politicians in Washington who have any regard for our fisheries resources. The answer is a resounding no otherwise we wouldn't be having these conversations.

It's a shame what happens in this world where a duplicitous few can make decisions of a global nature which devastate resources which by right belong to all of us.

Dakota

[Angler Paul]

The show glorifying the taking of elvers has been aired on the Animal Planet. Numerous concerned people have complained to them about it.