Glass Eel: More Than $2,000 a Pound

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Jenifer B McKim, There's Gold in Them Thar EEls. Soaring prices have brught a welcome windfall to Mainers who net the slippery fish. But warning signs are on the horizon. Boston Globe, May 19, 2013 (front page).
http://www.bostonglobe.com/busin ... m1sh8lON/story.html

Quote:

(a) "following a 2010 European moratorium on exporting eels and a depleted Japanese stock that was aggravated by the 2011 tsunami, prices took off last year to meet Asia’s voracious appetite for eel. Last spring, eels were going for $2,600 a pound.

(b) "Maine is one of only two US states — the other is South Carolina — that have legal elver fisheries. That’s largely because other states weren’t interested in eel fishing until recently.

(c) "American eel [Anguilla rostrata] live up to 25 years and travel hundreds of miles to and from the Sargasso Sea, a massive mat of seaweed floating east of the Bahamas in the so-called Bermuda Triangle.

"Baby eel larvae are carried by currents up along the East Coast, where they mature into glass eels and head into brackish and fresh waters. Over years, they gain size and pigment, turning yellow and then silver, and growing up to 3 feet long.

"Eventually, they return to the Sargasso Sea to spawn and die.


Note:
(a) There is no way to breed eels in man-made environment. Thus it is necessary to catch glass eels in the wild and raise them in the ponds.
(b) eel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel
(section 4 Commercial species)

Please check the map (at the top of each Web page) for "Main producer countries."
(i) Anguilla anguilla; Cultured Aquatic Species Information Programme. Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations, undated
http://www.fao.org/fishery/culturedspecies/Anguilla_anguilla/en
(European eel)

* See also
Anguilla anguilla; Species Fact sheets.
http://www.fao.org/fishery/species/2203/en
(a map titled "Geographical Distribution")
(ii) Anguilla japonica; Cultured Aquatic Species Information Programme.
http://www.fao.org/fishery/culturedspecies/Anguilla_japonica/en
(China is by far the largest producer of farmed Japanese eels (eg 73 percent of global production in 2003); it is the most expensive foodfish in Japan)

(c) Eel. Info & Services Co Ltd (FIS), Apr 19, 2013.
http://www.fis.com/fis/reports/report.asp?l=e&specie=128

Please view Tables 1 and 2 for Japan's import of live and processed eel, respectively (source: Japan customs)

(d) Regarding the title "There's Gold in Them Thar EEls."  That is a word play on famous quotations from a fictional character, created by Mark Twain.

MF Stephenson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._F._Stephenson
(1801-1878)

Reference 2 is
Edward A Johnson, "Thar's Gold in Them Thar Hills;" Georgia Gold History. University System of Georgia (USG), undated
, which makes it clear that correct spelling of "thar" is "there."
(e) Brewer, Maine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer,_Maine
(a city)
(f) Sargasso Sea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargasso_Sea
(section 1 History)