In a stunning revelation, the Associated Press has reported that supertrawlers targeting krill—a small crustacean that serves as the primary food sources of whales, penguins and seals in Antarctica—may reach this year's catch limit of 620,000 tons for the first time ever, triggering an automatic stop and raising concerns of overfishing in one of the world’s most remote and sensitive sea areas.

The record catch is inextricably linked to a controversial decision made last year by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)—the intergovernmental body responsible for the conservation of marine wildlife in the Southern Ocean—to suspend restrictions that for the past 15 years have forced the krill catch to be spread out over large swaths of the Antarctic.

The dereliction of duty to guide decision making by the precautionary principle has allowed for the entire catch limit to being taken from smaller areas where concentrations of whales, penguins and seals are the highest, and is believed to be the reason for the unprecedented and imminent closure of the fishery for this season, exacerbating overfishing pressures that the “move on clause” was meant to prevent.

The krill fishery has long postulated that its operations are “sustainable”, pointing to an estimated krill biomass of 63 million tons, and arguing that a catch limit of 620,000 tons represents just 1% of krill populations.

However, this is deeply and deliberately misleading, as most of the krill take is from an increasingly smaller area. It’s the equivalent of a hunter saying that they’re only killing 1% of the U.S. deer population but leaving out that all the deer were shot in Rhode Island.

For the past three years, Sea Shepherd has been shadowing the fleet of krill supertrawlers. These vessels are plundering the traditional feeding grounds of fin and humpback whales, whose primary food source is krill, just to produce omega-3 health food supplements for which there are plant-based alternatives.

On the 25th of March, the Antarctic Endeavor, a supertrawler trailed by the Sea Shepherd vessel Allankay off Coronation Island in the South Orkney Islands, reported the death of a whale in its trawl net after dragging its massive fishing gear through waters where Sea Shepherd scientists had documented humpback whales foraging. Whale entanglement is not new to the krill fishery. In 2024, at least three juvenile humpback whales were fatally entangled in the nets of krill supertrawlers.

Most of the fishing activity that was detected and documented by Sea Shepherd was concentrated around the South Orkney Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, both essential to a proposed marine protected area (MPA) first tabled by Argentina and Chile in 2017, in part because it is one of the world’s most important habitats for whales.

At the same meeting where the requirements for catch dispersal were lifted, the annual effort by 25 out of 27 CCAMLR member states to adopt the MPA proposal was once again blocked by the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation.

According to a report from CCAMLR reviewed by the Associated Press, fishing pressure in one hot spot was nearly 60% higher this year than in previous years.

The CCAMLR decision to allow fishing vessels to target most of their efforts on the places where the greatest quantities of krill can be found—areas close to sea ice, near island habitats, and where whales, penguins and seals are feeding—and the failure of the intergovernmental organization to adopt an MPA that would protect those spaces, is the reason why the fishing industry will now reach the krill catch limit for the first time in history. Expect them to lobby for an increased catch limit as a result.

Sea Shepherd believes that all of Antarctica should be closed to industrialised fishing, and will continue to protect her from these unnecessary threats. Learn more about our campaign here.