Captain Paul Watson Foundation Launches “Operation Krill Wars” to Defend Antarctic Whales
Crew departs for Southern Ocean to confront industrial krill fishing
The Captain Paul Watson Foundation has announced the launch of Operation Krill Wars, a new campaign sending its vessel Bandero to the Southern Ocean to confront industrial krill fishing in critical whale feeding grounds near Antarctica.
For more than a decade, Captain Paul Watson led campaigns in Antarctic waters to defend whales from Japanese whaling fleets, physically intervening to protect endangered species. Those efforts contributed to international attention on whaling and preceded the International Court of Justice ruling Japan’s Antarctic “scientific whaling” program illegal.
Today, conservationists warn that whales face a new and growing threat: the rapid expansion of industrial krill fishing.
“Krill may be small, but they are the foundation of life in the Southern Ocean,” said Captain Paul Watson. “Every great whale, seal, penguin, and countless seabirds depend on Antarctic krill as their primary food source. If krill disappear, the entire ecosystem begins to unravel.”
Scientists consider krill a keystone species in the Antarctic ecosystem. Last season, factory trawlers harvested more than 620,000 tonnes of Antarctic krill, with over 70% taken directly from whale feeding grounds. Fishing nations are now pushing to expand allowable catches to 1.2 million tonnes, nearly doubling the pressure on an ecosystem already stressed by climate change.
Much of the catch is processed into pet feed and omega-3 supplements.
Stripping the base of the food chain for low-value commodities risks irreversible damage to one of the last intact marine ecosystems on Earth.
The Bandero and its crew will defend critical feeding grounds, and bring global attention to what the organization describes as an “invisible war” unfolding in one of the most remote regions of the planet.
“If we want whales to survive, we must protect their food,” Watson added.
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https://www.paulwatsonfoundation.org/operation-krill-wars/