The restrictions would have applied to the trade of 17 eel species, including American eel, which is the basis of a controversial fishery in Atlantic Canada. American eel are harvested as palm-size juveniles from Maritime rivers in the spring, and exported to Asia for rearing in aquaculture facilities. A kilogram of baby eels (called elvers) was fetching nearly $5,000<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n That price drives not only commercial and Indigenous fisheries, but also a large black-market fishery conducted by organized crime, experts say, making a coordinated response necessary. The Sustainable Eel group, a conservation group based in the U.K., says illegal eel sales are the \u201cworld\u2019s greatest wildlife crime.\u201d<\/a> Despite its vote against the listing, experts say Canada, as a hub for the trade, has a particularly important role to play.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCanada could have played a role at this meeting, and actually led support for the proposal,\u201d Katie Schleit, fisheries director at Oceans North says. \u201cThey\u2019ve come out in all kinds of different arenas as being a champion to fight illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing, [but] \u2026 they aren\u2019t taking responsibility for the role that Canada\u2019s actually playing in the global illegal trade of eels right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Illegal fishing, exports put pressure on American eel<\/p>\n Trade poses a significant threat to biodiversity, according to Sheldon Jordan, a wildlife crime consultant who formerly worked on wildlife enforcement at Environment and Climate Change Canada. \u201cWhen [people] think of endangered species, they\u2019re thinking of all the things in The Lion King, but the biggest threat is actually [to] the consumables. It\u2019s the fish, it\u2019s the wood, the things that we eat,\u201d he says. With eel, \u201cthe demand is outstripping the supply. There is a conservation issue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which has been ratified by 185 parties, is meant to address this. Since 1975, the convention has worked to regulate the trade in wild plants and animals, to maximize their chances of survival.<\/p>\n This year, the European Union, with the support of Honduras and Panama, nominated 17 species of eel<\/a> to be included under an appendix that regulates trade, but doesn\u2019t prevent it. While the proposal noted Japanese and American eel are particularly at risk, the parties nominated over a dozen freshwater species, noting that eels are often impossible to tell apart, making enforcement a challenge.<\/p>\n European eel \u2014 which has declined by up to 95 per cent in rivers across Europe \u2014 shows why this is important, Jordan says.\u00a0<\/p>\n The export of European eels from the European Union has been banned since at least 2011 (with European eel listed under CITES in 2009), but the ban did not stop the export of juvenile eels to Asia. Jordan says his Environment Canada officers in Vancouver and Toronto intercepted containers of frozen eel meat from Asia as late as 2017, almost a decade after the CITES listing. The meat was labelled as American eel, but genetic testing revealed up to 50 per cent was European eel that had been falsely declared to evade controls.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cIn the end, our officers confiscated 186 tonnes of eel meat,\u201d Jordan says. \u201cThat was six, seven times more than our previous record when it came to endangered species being seized.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Jordan says he warned colleagues at Fisheries and Oceans Canada that given the low supply and high price of European eel, it was only a matter of time before demand exploded for North American exports. \u201cAnd unfortunately, that has come to pass.\u201d<\/p>\n In Canada, the target is American eel, which is also found throughout the eastern United States, the Caribbean and at the northern edge of South America. American eel have a complex life cycle that starts in an area of the Atlantic Ocean known as the Sargasso Sea. Larvae spend up to a year floating around in the ocean, before transparent juveniles swim up rivers in the spring.<\/p>\n The Canadian commercial quota for those elvers has been set at roughly 10,000 kilograms for decades, and in recent years, the fishery has been the subject of bitter conflict<\/a> as high prices have increased fishing pressure. Meanwhile, as Jordan predicted, exports of elvers have soared; in 2022, imports of live elvers into East Asia from the Americas jumped to 157 tonnes, up from 53 tonnes in 2021, according to a paper published in Marine Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Over the last five years, Fisheries and Oceans Canada has cancelled the elver season multiple times, citing illegal fishing and violence. Since then, the federal government has imposed new regulations<\/a> to increase the traceability of the catch, including possession and export licences.\u00a0<\/p>\n At this year\u2019s meeting of the endangered species trade convention, Canada\u2019s delegate cited these regulations in its position against listing. The delegate also described recent advances in rapid genetic testing that they said addresses the lookalike problem, though an Environment and Climate Change Canada report<\/a> from September notes these tests have a 20 per cent false positive rate, and an ideal operating range above 18 C, meaning they can\u2019t be used on frozen meat.<\/p>\n Not everyone agrees on stability of American eel population<\/p>\n Whether harvested as part of the official commercial quota or not, Jordan says elvers are sent to Toronto, where the companies that prepare them to survive export are located.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jordan says this makes Toronto the intermediate destination for American eel from not just Canada, but also the Caribbean, including places like Haiti where political instability fuels poaching, and the Dominican Republic, which has been asking for help in controlling illegal trade. \u201cToronto is basically the hub of the legal and illegal elver trade in the Western Hemisphere, with almost all of the eels going through Canada on their way to Asia,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Being a central hub for the eel trade across the Americas, Canada would have been \u201cin a really strong place to play a positive, constructive role in regulating the international trade,\u201d Jordan says. He thinks a stronger stance would have levelled the playing field for Canadian harvesters, who are currently held to a higher standard than in other countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet Mitchell Feigenbaum, a commercial licence holder with a fishing business based in New Brunswick and member of an industry group, says while licence holders agree illegal trade is a problem, they were opposed to the listing.<\/p>\n Feigenbaum says initially, he saw a listing as just \u201cmore red tape.\u201d But he became concerned when he saw the text of the proposal, which identified American and Japanese eel at serious risk of becoming endangered without regulation. He felt the push for the listing was an attempt by \u201cenvironmentalists and scientists with a particular predisposition\u201d to call into question the conservation status of eel. \u201cIt really just felt like it\u2019s a slap in the face, or \u2026 a strategic move by opponents of the fishery to gain a political advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n Feigenbaum suggested American eel are resilient and can recover when their population is depleted, pointing to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u2019s 2015 decision not to list American eel as threatened<\/a>. In its statement at the convention, the Canadian government referred to a 2025 Fisheries and Oceans scientific report<\/a> indicating that populations were stable.\u00a0<\/p>\n Not everyone sees eel populations that way.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kerry Prosper, Mi\u2019kmaw Elder and councillor for Paqtnkek First Nation, has been fishing and working with eels most of his life. In recent years, he\u2019s noticed a significant decline in the population of adult eels that community members once fished for food. \u201cIt\u2019s quite a contrast that we\u2019re in, and it\u2019s so sad.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Paqtnkek was offered a licence for the elver fishery by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, but turned it down, Prosper says. \u201cWe simply don\u2019t have faith in their management plans.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1990, a Supreme Court case known as Sparrow ruled that First Nations had the right to food, social and ceremonial fisheries, putting that right above commercial and recreational fisheries. Prosper says the ruling is being disregarded, and he worries the harvesting of baby eels harms the adult population, putting food security at risk.<\/p>\n Harvesting and exporting eels for commercial profit shouldn\u2019t come \u201cat the cost of the species itself and the Indigenous people who live near where it comes from,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just total disregard and disrespect to the animal and to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n Schleit, with Oceans North, points out that stability of the American eel population in recent decades comes after a period of steep decline. In its stock assessment, Fisheries and Oceans noted that the species has likely declined by more than 50 per cent since 1980\u00a0<\/p>\n Federal government announces American eel will not be added to species at risk<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/CP217999658CP170226515-single-use-scaled.jpg\"\/)
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species held its meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The meeting included a crucial vote on whether to place global trade restrictions on eel species, including the American eel. Canada voted against restrictions. Photo: Kyodonews via ZUMA Press<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/CP170226515-single-use-scaled.jpg\"\/)
Juvenile eels, known as elvers, are targeted by poachers for their value, which hit $5,000 per kilogram in 2023. In recent years, Fisheries and Oceans Canada has cancelled elver season due to illegal activity, but recently said existing legislation is sufficient to protect the species. Photo: Robert F. Bukaty \/ Associated Press<\/p>\n
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Katie Schleit, fisheries director at Oceans North and pictured in Samarkland, Uzbekistan where the recent vote took place, says the federal government isn\u2019t \u201ctaking responsibility for the role that Canada\u2019s actually playing in the global illegal trade of eels right now.\u201d Photo: Supplied by Oceans North<\/p>\n