The Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica is the world’s largest feeding ground for baleen whales – species like humpbacks that filter tiny organisms from seawater for food. In the 20th century, whalers killed roughly 2 million large whales in the Southern Ocean. Some populations, like the Antarctic blue whale, were reduced by more than 99% and have been struggling to recover, even though most nations ended commercial whaling in the mid-1980s.
Today a new threat is emerging: industrial fishing for Antarctic krill – tiny swimming crustaceans, roughly 2 inches (60 millimeters) long. In a newly published study, colleagues and I found that competition with this burgeoning fishery may impede whales’ recovery.
I first learned about this issue in early 2022, when a colleague working aboard a cruise ship told me that he had seen approximately 1,000 fin whales feeding on krill near the South Orkney Islands, just north of Antarctica. This was probably the largest aggregation of baleen whales seen since the 1930s, at the peak of industrial whaling.
My friend also reported that four enormous fishing boats were weaving among the huge group of whales, with large nets deployed. Like the whales, they were fishing for Antarctic krill.
Because the Southern Ocean is so remote, few people realized that krill fishing was competing directly with whales. Together with colleagues from Stanford and the University of Washington, we wrote about this observation in 2023 to draw attention to the potential threat to recovering populations.
We were soon contacted by Sea Shepard Global, a nonprofit organization that works to protect marine wildlife and had been monitoring this situation for several years. They reported that direct overlap between foraging whales and active fishing operations was common.
Now, krill fishing is on the verge of expanding. Along the Antarctic Peninsula, the fishing industry has proposed increasing the catch limit fourfold, from 155,000 tons to 668,101 tons annually.
Nearly all of this catch is used to make two products: fish meal for aquaculture, and omega-3 dietary supplements. Most of the fish meal feeds farmed salmon, which develop their familiar pink color from consuming the food.
Meanwhile, whales are competing with fishing boats for the animals’ sole food supply. Whales feed for roughly 100 days out of each year; depending on the species, an adult whale may consume 1 to 6 tons of krill in a day.
Most baleen whales use a strategy called lunge feeding: They swim rapidly toward a swarm of krill, opening their enormous mouths at the exact right moment. Then they close their jaws and force the seawater out through the bristly baleen plates in their mouths, filtering the krill from the water.
This behavior consumes a lot of energy, so the whales target large, dense swarms of krill – and so do fishing boats. From 2021 through 2023, four humpback whales died after becoming entangled in krill fishing nets.
The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an international organization that manages use of the Southern Ocean, is required to ensure that whales and other krill-dependent populations are not harmed due to fishing. However, the commission operates by consensus, so if one member state opposes an action, nothing changes.
Member states have stalled proposals to create marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean and regulate krill fishing more tightly. A U.S.-led coalition is pressing for stricter limits, but Russia and China have resisted. Our work shows that if Antarctic krill fishing expands without strict guardrails to protect wildlife, baleen whales’ fragile comeback could be halted or even reversed.
Matthew Savoca is a research scientist at Stanford University.
The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.
© The Conversation
7 Comments
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stormcrow
The whales just can't catch a break thanks to the stupidity of mankind.
Can the oceans survive without whales? According to the late-great Jacque Cousteau, the oceans would die without the whale.
Gene Hennigh
Fishing for krill? I can't believe that in this century krill fishing is still allowed. It should be banned. Krill are cute and they don't do anything to any one. Maybe we need an activist to charge in there and harass those horrible krill fishers. Krill feed whales. Okay, so they do not deserve to be fished to extinction. Banish krill killing!
deanzaZZR
This is my sad whale face. Human greed is limitless.
Thankfully some researchers are studying the issue and publishing facts.
Daniel Neagari
about the krill fishing... sustainable fishing and krill farming. That can be a good solution for over fishing... as every type of food production should be
Peter14
We have begun consuming lab grown meats, so why not develop the same way to get lab made krill for human requirements. Leave the wild krill for the whales to eat and re-balance the seas. Wild krill have a fair chance of survival as whales cant and never have been able to eat them all. many live long normal lives and reproduce in such large numbers that support huge numbers of whales when the balance is "normal".
And lab grown Krill are not consumed directly by humans but fed to Salmon and used as vitamin supplements only.
Give nature a break.
Daniel Neagari
errrr... no we haven't begun consuming lab grown meat.... because it is not a thing. At the moment the technology and resources require to produce that kind of "meat" is too expensive and production is unreliable/slow.
Making a more efficient farming method for producing vegetables and meat, for this last one also creating other options to lower the stress and needs of certain type of animal protein.. by this I mean, expanding other sources of animal protein (mainly insects) reducing the culture of over producing and over consumption are far better, cheaper and effective ways to "give nature a break".
Creating meat in lab, in my opinion will only create more problems that solutions.
starpunk
Let me get this straight, did this article say 'Antarctica'? As in that huge South Pole continent that has just a few research science stations that are never permanently inhabited by anyone? Up in the Arctic Ocean regions of course there are the Eskimo and Alaskan Native peoples who hunt and farm whales, as well as make industrial uses for them. I'm sure the same way is for krill. But they've been doing this as a way of life for millennia and they know better than to plunder and lay it all to waste. After all, that is their livelihood.
WTH are we doing fooling around in the Antarctic Ocean hunting whales and krill there to near extinction? Can't we leave some regions alone? We need to be more careful about our environment, resources, animals, plants. Yes, the Bible, Quran, etc. say that man has dominion over all these things but that's a responsibility that God/Yahweh/the Creator/Jah/Great Spirit/Allah/Shang-tri/etc. gave to mankind. That means we need take what we need to survive and live but don't muck it up. And mankind has not been very responsible in these matters.