An aquaculture project that would have seen juvenile American eels grown to adulthood in Atlantic Canada rather than China has been thrown into disarray by uncertainty over a Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) plan to reallocate quota, reports the Halifax-based Chronicle Herald.

NovaEel, a company created by five of the nine commercial elver license holders in Atlantic Canada, had proposed to build an aquaculture facility in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia to raise baby eels to adult size.

All elvers caught in Atlantic Canada are currently exported to China, where they are used as seed stock in aquaculture facilities. There, they are treated with various drugs to cause the androgynous elvers to become female and speed up their growth.

NovaEel had worked with Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia to develop a feminization drug for raising wild-caught elvers in captivity, allowing Canada to do the same.

The company is in the final stages of applying for regulatory approval in Canada and the US for its drug, which would allow it to feminize eels grown locally. Both governments have granted CAD 1.0 million $690,000 each for the research, said NovaEel chief executive officer Paul Smith.

However, NovaEel's business case depended on a commitment by licensed quota holders to provide 360 kilograms of elvers annually for seven years.

License holders were prepared to do that until DFO started talking about a pilot project to redistribute 50% of the elver quota held by established companies, allowing 150 new licenses and increased participation by First Nations, as previously reported by Undercurrent News. 

If that happens, current license holders say they will not have enough quota to support NovaEel, and the company's entire business plan is lost, said Smith.

In recent years, the combined elver quota for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick has been small, around 9,860 kilograms annually since 2006, but valuable, with prices of anywhere from CAD 3,000 per kilo to CAD 5,000/kilo.

In 2024, DFO closed the commercial fishery to preserve the stock and to deal with illegal fishing, as reported by Undercurrent. 

Last week, DFO postponed discussions on the elver pilot project, saying only it would contact commercial license holders when a decision is reached.