ELLSWORTH, Maine — Maine’s Department of Marine Resources has released updated 2012 landings figures that confirm what many people already knew, if only unofficially: the value of the state’s elver fishery shot up significantly last year.
The official preliminary tally of last year’s elver season, which ran from late March through the end of May, indicates that elver fishermen earned a cumulative total of nearly $38 million in 2012, which is approximately five times the cumulative total of $7.6 million that they got for their catch the year before.
Compared to 2010, it’s even more staggering. That year, the fishery generated only $584,000 in revenue for licensed fishermen — one sixty-fifth of its value in 2012.
The elver fishery now ranks behind only lobster in Maine for overall fishery value.
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Over 500 lots of seafood processing equipment formerly owned by Adak Seafood will be sold at auction on Tuesday, June 18, starting at 10 a.m. Hawaiian-Aleutian Daylight Time at the Hilton Garden Inn in Anchorage Alaska.
The equipment is located in a recently updated 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art processing facility in Adak, Alaska. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Hilco Industrial, which conducts 75 machinery and equipment auctions in a wide range of industries annually, will conduct the auction.
Adak Seafood opened originally as Ada Fisheries in Anchorage in 1986. The facility, updated in 2005, is located on the island of Adak, the southernmost city in Alaska near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The facility processed cod primarily, as well as halibut, blackcod, crab and pollock, Hilco says.
Alaska fisherman and commercial fisheries activist Kevin Adams was elected chairman at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors meeting on May 9 in Anchorage.
The governor-appointed board consists of seven members: five seafood processors and two industry representatives actively engaged in commercial fishing. Adams was appointed to fill a harvester seat by Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2004.
With 38 years of fishing experience in Bristol Bay, Adams has long been an active member in the Alaska fishing industry, ASMI says. He has worked for both the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation and the Bering Sea Fisherman's Association, and represents Alaska fishermen on numerous boards.
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