PORTLAND (AP) — Maine’s lucrative fishing season for baby eels is wrapping up for 2016.

The season for baby eels, also called elvers, officially ends on Tuesday. The season for fishermen who have hit their quota for the year has already ended.

The eels are sold to Asian aquaculture companies who raise them to maturity for use as food.

Fishermen in the state were allowed to catch a little less than 10,000 pounds of elvers this year. State officials said fishermen were within 400 pounds of the quota by the end of May.

The elvers have sold for about $1,450 per pound this year. That is down from last year’s record of nearly $2,200 per pound, but the volume of catch was much greater this year.

Fishermen didn’t reach quota in 2015.


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