Antarctica’s krill fishery has shut down months ahead of schedule after reaching its full seasonal catch-limit—a historic first. The early closure is fueling urgent calls to protect the Southern Ocean’s fragile marine ecosystems from mounting industrial fishing and climate change.
Typically, the fishery runs from December 1 to November 30. This year, it closed the first week of August, according to Javier Arata, executive officer of the Association of Responsible Krill Harvesting Companies (ARK). The organization includes 10 krill fishing companies and 12 vessels from China, Norway, South Korea, Chile and Ukraine. Together, these vessels catch up to 95 percent of the tiny crustaceans caught each year used to make omega-3 supplements, fish meal for farm-raised salmon and pet food.
There is concern among many scientists and conservationists that intensified krill fishing in concentrated areas could result in whales, penguins and other wildlife competing with the industry.

The Associated Press first reported the anticipated closure last week, after receiving a leaked report by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the international body charged with managing fisheries in Antarctica and safeguarding its marine ecosystems.
The document indicated that the fishery was on track to catch 620,000 tons of krill by early August, the maximum amount CCAMLR allows to be fished annually. This amount, referred to as a “trigger level,” was set by the commission in 1991 as a precautionary measure to prevent overfishing of the crustaceans.
“A combination of growing fishing capacity and the ability to operate during winter in preferred fishing grounds led the fishery to reach the 620,000-tonne trigger level for the first time,” Arata said in an email. “The fishery has now been closed for the remainder of the season.”
CCAMLR declined to comment, but Philip Trathan, a former U.K. delegate and senior ecological advisor to the commission, said such reports are typically reserved for internal review only by the organization’s 27 member states until after their annual October meeting in Hobart, Australia. Breaching this protocol, he said, can erode trust and undermine the consensus-building process essential to CCAMLR’s decision making.
Still, he said, now that the data is public, he hopes it will prompt commission members to agree on a new krill fishery management plan and ecological monitoring mechanisms that would ensure the industry does not negatively impact marine life.
Most animals in Antarctica depend on krill as their primary food source, including whales, penguins, seals, flying seabirds and fish. But CCAMLR only monitors populations of a few flying seabirds, including black-browed albatrosses and Antarctic petrels, several penguin species and Antarctic fur seals, according to Trathan.
The organization does not have any mechanism in place to monitor baleen whales or fish, which likely consume the greatest amounts of krill in the area, he said. “That is a key gap in our scientific knowledge.”
In January, Inside Climate News reported from Antarctica on scientists collecting data on the potential overlapping presence of baleen whales—a group of species that includes humpback, fin and blue whales among others that feed on krill—and krill fishing vessels.
Some humpback whales travel to Antarctica to feed on krill before migrating several thousand miles to their breeding grounds near Ecuador or Brazil. If they don’t get enough food, they might not be strong enough to make this journey, Trathan said. Some research suggests a decline in krill availability may impact their pregnancy rates, he said.
Penguins may also be at risk, according to Trathan, who currently conducts population surveys of the seabirds with Oceanities, a U.S. nonprofit that has tracked penguins in Antarctica for 30 years. Several species that nest in the region typically forage for krill within 25 miles of their colonies, but climate change is increasingly driving the crustaceans away from key breeding grounds near the Antarctic peninsula southward towards colder waters.
“It’s one of the fastest warming areas on the planet,” said Claire Christian, executive director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, who is advocating for the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the region that would limit or prohibit fishing. Species are better able to adapt to climate change when other stressors like fishing, she said, are reduced.
Otherwise, concentrated fishing in these areas could potentially put further strain on krill populations and force penguins to travel longer distances for food, reducing how often they can feed their chicks, according to Trathan.
Until recently CCAMLR enforced a longstanding rule, known as conservation measure 51-07, to prevent this from happening. The measure limited how much of the total annual krill catch could be caught in certain areas to avoid localized depletion of krill where predators look for them. For instance, in one area, known as subarea 48.1, which is near the Antarctic peninsula, only 155,000 tons of the total 620,000 catch limit could be caught, according to this measure.
But last year, CCAMLR’s members let the regulation expire.
Consequently, krill fishing vessels caught more than double that allowed amount this year in that subarea, which includes the Bransfield Strait, a popular tourism site renowned for its abundance of wildlife. In an email, Arata from ARK said, “Because [of] the expiration of CM 51-07, the fleet remained fishing at their preferred fishing ground in the Bransfield Strait.” He said he estimates the vessels caught around 355,000 tons of krill in this area this season.
By July, they had caught nearly 620,000 tons of krill throughout the region, which has never happened before.
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This development is not unexpected. After the critical fishing regulation expired last year, scientists and conservationists anticipated this would happen, said Nicholas Kirkham, who leads Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy’s efforts to propose and create a network of marine protected areas and improve fishing regulations in the Southern Ocean. Now, there’s evidence.
“We know what the fishery is capable of,” he said. I don’t think we can go another fishing season without having the correct measures in place.”
In October, CCAMLR will convene in Hobart. There, it is expected they will revisit the prospect of adopting a new krill fishery management plan that was originally proposed at last year’s meeting, but rejected by some members, according to Evan Bloom, former U.S. commissioner to CCAMLR.
According to Bloom, the proposed fishery plan would reintroduce safeguards to prevent concentrated fishing in critical feeding or breeding grounds for predators. It would also establish at least one MPA near the Antarctic Peninsula. The plan could also lead to increasing the annual krill catch limit—a key priority for fishing nations like China and Norway. But reaching that outcome, Bloom said, will require concessions on all sides.
“If they want to catch more, they’re going to have to come up with some compromise,” he said. “A majority of the CCAMLR membership are unlikely to allow an increase of the trigger level unless there’s some understanding reached with respect to one or more MPAs.”
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