American eel not threatened or endangered

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by EricM

"*****Heather noted that “sustainable” here didn’t relate to fishery use. She noted that she didn’t add enough eels to provide for fishery use, in a Status Review, only those necessary to sustain the population viability and keep it from going extinct.*****"

"Heather noted that a decline is not a reason for listing. The issue is whether it will remain on the planet at a level which is sustainable for the population. But, it can’t be on some downward trend that will continue. That would mean we list it as threatened. ****Paul noted we don’t know what the true trend is at all. ****"

Don't sell your sluggos yet... There are plenty of things that aren't status endangered/threatened that can't be harvested, i.e. bluebacks and alewives. According to "heather" harvest wasn't considered in the data. There may be harvest limits or prohibitions once ASMFC and NMF get the data that they just started collecting. I am not sure of the time line at this point...

Key point is they aren't addressing the use of eels commercially or trapping for rec.fishing. It may not be too far down the road that we can't use em for fishing.

Any bait shop people know where most of the eels are coming from in the shops? I thought a good percent came fromCanada, but I could be wrong...