Save or plunder: both sides in for the krill

Having won the whaling war, Sea Shepherd is back in the Southern Ocean, this time taking on krill fishers and claiming to have evidence of Chinese super-trawlers endangering whales.

Captain Peter Hammarstedt monitors Chinese super-trawlers in the Southern Ocean. Picture: Sea Shepherd / Bob Brown Foundation

Having won the whaling war, Sea Shepherd is back in the Southern Ocean, this time taking on krill fishers and claiming to have evidence of Chinese super-trawlers endangering whales.

Placing the burgeoning krill ­industry firmly on notice, the group that famously hounded whalers has sent an Australian-funded ship to waters off the Antarctic Peninsula to track and film krill fishers.

Speaking from the vessel, the Allankay, campaigners from Sea Shepherd and Bob Brown Foundation told The Australian they had seen krill vessels fishing through large pods of whales, risking their entanglement.

“We’ve witnessed around 200 whales and two trawlers ploughing right through them,” said BBF Antarctic campaigner Alistair Allan. “They do that because where there’s whales there’s krill.

“There is a growing conflict ­between the krill fishery and wildlife, especially whales.”

Sea Shepherd’s Peter Hammarstedt said it appeared that some krill fishers were “deliberately steering for the spouts of the whales”, placing them at risk of net entanglement.

“There are cases of whale ­entanglement – a couple of years ago there were three cases of dead humpback whales in these trawl nets,” Mr Hammarstedt said.

“The competition between whales and krill operations is only likely to increase with time. So we see the fishery as a direct threat to whales because of the entanglements … but also an indirect threat because these vessel operators are targeting the primary food source for baleen whales and for many species of penguin and the Antarctic fur seal.”

When the campaigners arrived in the area on Sunday, their presence had an immediate impact. “Both of the two Chinese vessels hauled net as soon as Sea Shepherd arrived on the scene and started running out of the area,” Mr Hammarstedt said.

However, they had since ­returned, and were fishing in the area, near the South Orkney ­Islands, along with five other krill vessels and two cargo ships that took the krill back to home ports.

Once home, the campaigners plan to highlight the use of krill in some fish oil health supplements and in some farmed salmon feed to give the fish a pink hue. “It’s just an absurdity that krill is almost literally being vacuumed out of the mouths of chinstrap penguins in order to make salmon pink,” Mr Hammarstedt said.

The main feed supply company for Australian salmon growers, BioMar, said it only used krill meal that was a “by-product from krill fished for human consumption”. “All krill sourced for BioMar is 100 per cent Marine Stewardship Council certified,” a spokesman said.

Norway and China are among krill fishing nations increasingly using super-trawlers with continuous pumping systems. The 120m-long Shen Len – the first of a series of Chinese krill super-trawlers being commissioned – can harvest 100,000 tonnes of krill a year.

An allowable krill catch is set by the 26-nation Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

The krill industry did not respond by deadline but has recently argued the catch limit is extremely conservative, while pointing to data suggesting krill abundance in the fishing area did not change overall, and perhaps increased, from 2000 to 2019.

However, scientists and conservationists are concerned the catch limit fails to take into consideration climate change impacts and whale foraging needs.