Falmouth Environmental Services Thwarts $28,000 Eel Poaching – Wait, 28K!?

CapeCodOnine.com — The Falmouth Department of Marine and Environmental Services responded to a suspected case of elver poaching Saturday, saving about 35 pounds of the young and valuable eels.

The department received a tip when a driver near a herring run saw two men who quickly left in a truck when the passer-by tried to engage them, department Deputy Director Chuck Martinsen said.

The suspicious activity prompted officials to investigate and they found a school of elvers, also known as glass eels, condensed in a fish way, making it hard for them to migrate, Martinsen said.

“We found this tremendous natural resource,” he said. “The run was loaded with them and there was no possible way within that tide cycle or following tide cycle they would be able to move through.”

The department is not releasing the location of the fish way, to protect the eels from future poaching.

The department, along with Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and Environmental Police, moved the eels to the undisclosed pond where they were migrating, according to a Facebook post by Department of Marine and Environment Director Gregg Fraser. If the poachers had sold the eels they would have netted about $28,000, according to Fraser.

The young eels are sold to Asian markets as an aphrodisiac, Martinsen said.

$28,000?!?!? For those keeping score at home that is $800 per pound. That sound you just heard was the crackhead in your basement dropping the copper pipes he was about to steal and running out of your bulkhead to go eelin’! They probably should have kept their mouths shut on this one, we’re gonna have Cape derelicts crawling the banks of every pond on the peninsula like some kind of aquatic zombie apocalypse.

This is why we need to resurrect the American car and electronic industries. We are struggling to make ends meet and meanwhile Asians are paying 50 bucks an ounce for a slimy little snake just to get horny. As if they weren’t already rubbing our faces in it buying up our bluefin tunas for more than we earn in a lifetime ($1.8 million for a single fish), now they are buying 35 pounds of tiny eels for more than me pay for a Toyota!

P.S. Insane Tony’s wife Loopy Lucy better brace herself. Tony already notified me that he read this story and he was last seen running through the woods with waders on, bucket in hand. Looks like Lucy is gonna get some eel fueled lovin’ tonight.