Problems with Ottawa’s elver fishery proposal [Video]

Ottawa has hatched a plan to redistribute the wealth of Nova Scotia’s baby eel harvest from large licence holders to hard-working, individual fishers like Suzy Edwards and Mark Weldon.

But there’s a snag: some would-be recipients of the eel quota say the proposal is unfair, unworkable and unwanted.

Standing by a tidal river on the outskirts of Halifax where the tiny, translucent eels known as elvers migrate in the spring, Edwards said this week she was content as an employee of Atlantic Elver Fishery. Her employer based in southern Nova Scotia is one of the nine commercial licensees that stand to lose between 60 per cent and 90 per cent of their quotas.

“It’s going to break up a wonderful team who are almost like family,” Edwards said. “We’re not going to get a good price, because there’s going to be a lot of competition and fewer buyers.”

Under the federal Fisheries Department’sproposal released …