Why can't Maine have its own eel farms instead of shipping elvers to Asia?
SEAFOOD.COM NEWS - April 13, 2014 -
After 43 years in the business, fisherman Don Sprague knows a lot about the ups and downs of the elver economy. He’s been to China and seen the farms where Maine elvers get fattened up on a protein-rich diet, like foie gras ducks being readied for harvest.
What Sprague would like to see locally but hasn’t, is an effort to maximize the potential of this extraordinarily valuable resource through aquaculture. He thinks Maine should have its own eel farms. Each individual baby American eel (Anguilla Rostrata) that is shipped from Maine and flown to China, Taiwan, South Korea or Japan likely gets sold to a fish farmer for about $1, a great price for something smaller than your average earthworm.
But when it is an adult, now weighing anywhere from 3 to 16 pounds, that same eel will be worth $8 to $12 a pound in Asia, where eel is a classic, and treasured, part of the diet.
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