Fisheries and Oceans Canada says most of the eel/elver fishery takes place in waters adjacent to Eastern Nova Scotia, Southwest Nova Scotia and Southwest New Brunswick. DFO handoutJohn Couture is a senior fisheries adviser with Oceans North, working out of Unama'ki/Cape Breton.
Over the past two decades, the value of glass eels has skyrocketed. This has been good news for legal harvesters, but it’s also— and considering the precarious state of the stock, people have been asking for years whether the eel should be protected under the Species at Risk Act . Yet Fisheries and Oceans Canada has continued to drag its heels, neither taking strong action using its existing policies nor listing it through SARA.
This means that helping this species recover is not simply a matter of reducing the number of eels that are caught. It will require more complex planning, including restoring habitat and reconsidering dams and barriers in freshwater systems.