Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 19 December 2024

Bob Brown Foundation calls for permanent ban on krill fishing in Antarctica

Shocking images have been captured of industrial supertrawlers plundering krill from Antarctica right next to tourist vessels on the Antarctic Peninsula.

On the afternoon of 12 December 2024, several krill fishing vessels were seen close to the Gerlache Strait in Charlotte Bay, near Eckener Point. Two of these vessels belong to the Norwegian company Aker BioMarine, led by Kjell Inge Røkke, one of the richest men in Norway and worth US$3.4 billion.

This is one of the biggest krill harvesting companies worldwide.

Antarctic Endurance was passing by while Saga Sea could be seen actively trawling a bit further away. Another vessel, Long Fa, owned by the Chinese Zhongyu Global Seafood Corporation, was actively trawling close to a cruise ship and amongst pods of feeding humpback whales.

“The fact that even as people are marvelling at Antarctica’s beauty and wildlife, huge industrial trawlers are emptying the ocean of krill right in front of their eyes, highlights how disgraceful the krill fishery is,” said Alistair Allan, Bob Brown Foundation Antarctic and Marine Campaigner.

“Krill are the foundation of the Antarctic ecosystem. It’s well past time for the krill fishery to be banned forever.”

“Krill is used to make products we simply don’t need, such as pet food and farmed salmon fish feed. To use the foundation of an ecosystem to create these products is an environmental crime and a moral failure.”

“Antarctica and its wildlife face enough challenges as it is without supertrawlers coming all the way to the end of the Earth to plunder it for profit as well.”

“The Australian Government should propose a total ban on krill fishing at the next CCAMLR (Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources) meeting in 2025.”

Featured image above of Long Fa supertrawler courtesy BBF. 

Report – various authors, 17 December 2024

A mistaken belief that Antarctica is free from exploitation

Krill fishing giants harvesting along the Antarctic coastline

Chinstrap penguins in Charlotte bay (photo: Jonathan Zaccaria)

On 12 December 2024 in the afternoon several krill fishing vessels were seen close to the Gerlache Strait in Charlotte Bay, in the vicinity of Eckener Point. Two of these vessels belong to the Norwegian company Aker BioMarine, led by Kjell Inge Røkke one of the richest man in Norway worth 3,4 billion $USD1. This is one of the biggest krill harvesting companies worldwide. Antarctic Endurance was passing by, while Saga Sea could be seen actively trawling a bit further away. Another vessel, Long Fa, was actively trawling close to a cruise ship and feeding humpback whales. This vessel belongs to the Chinese Zhongyu Global Seafood Corporation2.

Krill are a keystone species in the Antarctic ecosystem as a critical food source for the Southern Ocean’s penguins, whales and seals, and also plays a critical role by capturing and sequestering carbon deep in the sea3.

Both organisations are members of the Association of Responsible Krill harvesting companies (ARK). A quick glance at Aker BioMarine’s website tells you that they are “one of the most sustainable fisheries in the world”4. However, it is highly debatable if krill fishing in the middle of the fragile ecosystem of the fragile ecosystem of the Antarctic Peninsula can truly be considered sustainable.

The Antarctic Endurance in Charlotte Bay (photo: Marjolein Mooij)

Saga Sea with deployed nets in Charlotte Bay (photo: Mara Unkefer)

Long Fa in Charlotte Bay (photo: Mara Unkefer)

Long Fa actively trawling. The pink spot on the right is krill hauled to the surface (photo: Mara Unkefer)

ARK members refrain from fishing in certain areas on a voluntary basis. These are called Voluntary Restricted Zones; areas where no krill is caught to supposedly protect penguin colonies that are depending on this krill. According to the map of VRZs, Charlotte Bay is excluded. ARK members can catch krill here and still call themselves sustainable and responsible krill fishers.

ARK’s map of Voluntary Restricted Zones5. Charlotte Bay is circled in red

Krill depends on ocean currents to move around, and any krill caught in Charlotte Bay will thus never make its way to the VRZs where fishing is prohibited. This limits prey availability close to the same penguin colonies ARK claims to protect. The vessels seen trawling in Charlotte Bay were surrounded by feeding humpback whales, and Eckener point is home to a colony of Antarctic cormorants, Antarctic terns, kelp gulls and chinstrap penguins6.

Antarctic cormorants, Kelp gulls, Antarctic terns and Chinstrap penguins breed each year at Eckener point, on the north east side of Charlotte Bay (photo: Jonathan Zaccaria)

Breeding chinstrap penguins can feed up to 70 km away from their colonies7. Given the apparent krill density in Charlotte Bay that day, it is likely that chinstrap penguins make their way there to feed. Chinstrap populations on the Antarctic peninsula are declining, making them vulnerable to changes in their food availability8,9. Moreover, Antarctic shags at Eckener point stay close to their breeding habitat and dive for food at depths of ten to sixty metres10. This range overlaps with the fishing depths of krill catchers11, posing the risk of entanglement in the nets. Humans are now in direct competition with whales for krill. The Voluntary Restricted Zones ‘safeguard whales during summer’ according to ARK, yet the abundancy of humpback whales present in Charlotte Bay when the vessels were trawling challenge this claim. Humpback whales prefer dense swarms of krill and thus compete for the same swarms krill fisheries target12. Whale populations are still increasing after intensive whaling during the last century. Their increasing need for krill is not taken into account in the catch limits8.

Beyond a reduction in prey availability, humpback whales risk entanglement in fishing nets when they share their feeding ground with krill trawlers13. Besides humpback whales, millions of seals (Crabeater, Weddell, Leopard, and Antarctic fur seal) also depend on krill as their main food source.

After being hunted extensively during the sealing era fur seals have made an impressive comeback (half a million were wiped out from the South Shetlands in the 1800s, where they are extinct nowadays).

However, populations are now seemingly declining14. Previous declines in fur seal populations have been linked to limited food availability and more stress put on their main food source may increase their decline. These arguments all oppose the notion that catching krill (wherever) can be considered responsible or sustainable.

Injured leopard seal on Deception Island (Photo: Mélanie Magnan)

This leopard seal was found injured on Deception Island on December 13th, missing one of its hind flippers a rare kind of wound for an apex predator.

An orca attack? A fight with another leopard seal? Or entanglement or bycatch from a fishing vessel?

The VRZs seem to be created for krill companies’ convenience to still allow krill fishing in Antarctica, rather than truly valuing the protection of wildlife. ARK proposes their own VRZs and does not depend on approval from other organisations15. This system enables any company to call themselves sustainable while simultaneously krill fishing in the midst of a fragile biodiversity hotspot. It makes one wonder how the VRZs came to be. Considering that, for example, adelie penguins can range up to hundreds of kilometres from their breeding areas when feeding16, staying only 40 kilometres away from breeding colonies seems ineffective.

Currently, ten krill fishing companies are brought together in ARK: Aker BioMarine and Rimfrost AS from Norway, PescaChile SA from Chile, Liaoning Pelagic Fisheries Corporation, Zhongyu Global Seafood Corporation, Fujian Zhengguan Fishery Development Corporation, Jiangsu Sunline Deep Sea Fishery and Rongcheng East China Fisheries Corporation from China and Jeong-Il Corporation and Dongwon Industries Corporation from Korea. Together, their fleet makes up for 90 percent of the krill catches in waters regulated by CCAMLR (Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources). As a result, almost all krill fishing companies can thus call themselves ‘sustainable’, according to their own standards. Their actions prove the opposite.

Krill fishers target a keystone ecosystem species for luxury products that humanity does not need. Krill is made into omega 3 supplements, which can be obtained from algae and other plant-based sources (with the same DHA and EPA fatty acids that can be found in krill oil17). Krill is also made into fish food to support salmon farming18, which is another industry that harms the environment19,20,21,22. The Antarctic Peninsula is richer in species than all areas in Antarctica: it is home to four species of seals, four species of penguins, numerous other birds (like skuas, petrels and terns), all depending on krill for support of the food web23. Krill fishing in the midst of a biodiversity hotspot and calling it sustainable is incomprehensible.

Yet around the South Atlantic CCAMLR area, which includes the Peninsula, krill fishing has increased significantly during the last twenty years: from roughly 114.500 tonnes in 2000 to 371.500 tonnes in 202124. If we don’t take action now, we risk not knowing where we will stand a decade from now. We must challenge the notion that krill fishing in such a fragile environment can ever be sustainable.

The fight to protect krill in the Antarctic Peninsula is about more than preserving a single species. It is about safeguarding an entire ecosystem and addressing the interconnected crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. The stakes could not be higher. Opposing krill fishing in the Antarctic is a vital step toward ensuring the health of our planet for generations to come.

Sixteen years ago in 2008 an article published in The New York Times25 warned about the danger of overfishing krill.

Will we end up in the 2020s that Soylent Green predicted, with empty seas due to overfishing?

Text by Marjolein Louisa Mooij on behalf of Jonathan Zaccaria, reviewed By Chris Garwood and Mara Unkefer. Dec. 17th 2024.

1 https://www.lifeinnorway.net/richest-people/

2 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/02/china-russia-team-up-krill-fishing-restrictions-antarctica?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

3 https://new.nsf.gov/science-matters/antarctic-krill-superheroes-southern-ocean

4 https://www.superbakrill.com/

5 https://www.ark-krill.org

6 Woehler et al., Ornithological observations at Eckener Point, Antarctic Peninsula, Polar Record, 2010

7 Warwick-Evans, V. et al. Using habitat models for chinstrap penguins Pygoscelis antarctica to advise krill fisheries management during the penguin breeding season. Divers. Distrib. 24, 1756–1771 (2018).

8 Krüger, L. (2023). Decreasing Trends of Chinstrap Penguin Breeding Colonies in a Region of Major and Ongoing Rapid Environmental Changes Suggest Population Level Vulnerability. Diversity, 15(3), 327.

9 https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22697761/184807209#population

10 Casaux, R. (2004). Diving patterns in the Antarctic shag. Waterbirds, 27(4), 382-387.

11 Wang, Z., Tang, H., Herrmann, B., & Xu, L. (2021). Catch pattern for Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) of different commercial trawls in similar times and overlapping fishing grounds. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, 670663.

12 Savoca, M.S., Kumar, M., Sylvester, Z. et al. Whale recovery and the emerging human-wildlife conflict over Antarctic krill. Nat Commun 15, 7708 (2024).

13 Trathan, P., Savoca, M., Friedlaender, A., Baines, M., Burkhardt, E., Cheeseman, T., … & Reisinger, R. R. Integrating the needs of recovering populations of baleen whales into the revised management framework for the commercial fishery for Antarctic krill. Frontiers in Marine Science, 11, 1458042.

14 Forcada, J., Hoffman, J. I., Gimenez, O., Staniland, I. J., Bucktrout, P., & Wood, A. G. (2023). Ninety years of change, from commercial extinction to recovery, range expansion and decline for Antarctic fur seals at South Georgia. Global Change Biology, 29(24), 6867-6887.

15 https://www.ark-krill.org/fact-sheets-3

16 Clarke, J., Emmerson, L. M., & Otahal, P. (2006). Environmental conditions and life history constraints determine foraging range in breeding Adélie penguins. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 310, 247-261.

17 Adarme-Vega, T. C., Thomas-Hall, S. R., & Schenk, P. M. (2014). Towards sustainable sources for omega-3 fatty acids production. Current opinion in biotechnology, 26, 14-18.

18 https://www.mdpi.com/2410-3888/8/12/590

19 Quiñones, R. A., Fuentes, M., Montes, R. M., Soto, D., & León‐Muñoz, J. (2019). Environmental issues in Chilean salmon farming: a review. Reviews in aquaculture, 11(2), 375-402.

20 Noakes, D. J., Beamish, R. J., & Kent, M. L. (2000). On the decline of Pacific salmon and speculative links to salmon farming in British Columbia. Aquaculture, 183(3-4), 363-386.

21 Hindar, K., Fleming, I. A., McGinnity, P., & Diserud, O. (2006). Genetic and ecological effects of salmon farming on wild salmon: modelling from experimental results. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 63(7), 1234-1247.

22 Taranger, G. L., Karlsen, Ø., Bannister, R. J., Glover, K. A., Husa, V., Karlsbakk, E., … & Svåsand, T. (2015). Risk assessment of the environmental impact of Norwegian Atlantic salmon farming. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 72(3), 997-1021.

23 Terauds, A., S. L. Chown, F. Morgan, H. J. Peat, D. J. Watts, H. Keys, P. Convey, and D. M. Bergstrom. (2012) Conservation biogeography of the Antarctic. Diversity and Distributions 18:726-741.

24 https://www.ccamlr.org/en/fisheries/krill-fisheries

25 https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/business/worldbusiness/25iht-krill.1.13188108.html