The fishing season for baby eels is set to begin in the Maritimes, but at least one First Nation says it won’t abide by federal rules that limit the lucrative catch.
In a March 5 letter, Chief Bob Gloade of Millbrook First Nation, near Truro, N.S., told the federal Fisheries Department his community won’t use Ottawa’s recently developed smartphone app to log fishers’ harvests from Nova Scotia rivers.
As well, Gloade said, his nation doesn’t recognize Ottawa’s jurisdiction to oversee the Indigenous fishery.
“We the Mi’kmaq of Millbrook have our own management plan that we have authorized under the treaties … We are not regulated by your colonial commercial licensing schemes, nor do we accept your proposed management plan,” the chief wrote.
Canadian baby eels — also known as elvers — are fished in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Maine and shipped live to Asia, where they are grown to maturity. Prices paid for elvers are high, ranging from $1,500 to $5,000 per kilogram in recent years, and the hotly contested industry has led to aggressive confrontations on the water.
After several chaotic and sometimes violent fishing seasons, Ottawa developed an application that allows enforcement officials to monitor the catch of juvenile eels from the point they’re taken out of the water to the moment they reach a border crossing.
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However, Gloade says the Millbrook fishers won’t use the app, and cites the 1999 Donald Marshall Jr. court decision that allows for Mi’kmaq communities to earn a moderate livelihood from fishing. That Supreme Court of Canada ruling also says Ottawa has the right to regulate fisheries for conservation purposes, but Gloade says his community will run its own regulatory system because it believes the elver stock is healthy.
The federal management plan for the 2025 elver season allocated 50 per cent of the 9,960-kilogram total allowable catch to new entrants from First Nations, shifting quota away from non-Indigenous, commercial licence holders. The regulated elver fishery wasn’t opened last year, with the federal minister citing violence and unlicensed harvesting on the rivers.
A spokeswoman for the federal Fisheries Department said in an email Friday that the courts have consistently upheld the Crown’s role in regulating the elver fishery, “even when regulating the exercise of inherent (Indigenous) or treaty rights.”
“As part of the management of this fishery, elver … licence holders must submit reports to (the Fisheries Department) via the new elver monitoring and traceability application,” said Debbie Buott-Matheson.
She said the system mirrors regulations in Maine, and allows enforcement officers to track precisely how many elvers are being netted and removed from rivers.
“Fishing activity occurring without a required licence or not in compliance with conditions of licence is subject to enforcement action,” said Buott-Matheson.
In a telephone interview Friday, Stanley King, a manager of Atlantic Elver Fishery Ltd, said the decision by Millbrook to reject the federal system is not a good sign for the season ahead. “Millbrook’s approach is disheartening, especially after (the Fisheries Department) went to great lengths to increase First Nation inclusion in the fishery,” King said.
The health of the elver fishery is unclear because data is lacking on the many rivers where they’re found, he said, adding that Ottawa has an obligation to take a cautious approach to avoid a decline in the species.
However, King also said he’s hoping the new tracing system will result in federal enforcement units cracking down on illegal shipments.
“If a truckload of elvers is discovered by fisheries officers and the people transporting them can’t produce proof, they’ll be seized,” he said. “Hopefully the app will improve officers’ chances of intercepting these kinds of shipments.”
Chief Gloade said in a telephone interview Friday that following the federal government’s guidelines “isn’t what our community wants to do.”
“We have the right to create our own plan, which is what we’ve been working on for the last couple of years,” he said.
The fishery was set to open at 12:01 a.m. local time on Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 21, 2025.
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