A Linkage between Right Whale and Krill Declines...

As many are aware, right whales got their name because when whaling was more prevalent they were considered the ‘right’ whales to hunt. Today they encounter a new threat.

The good news: in the southern hemisphere, at least, right whales have shown a serious rebound with population figures as of 1997 estimating as many as 10,000 of these whales.

The bad news: where in 2003 we were only finding a few whales that would mysteriously die, in more recent years we’ve seen figures up in the eighties and nineties, with the majority of these casualties being calves, which may be dying from malnutrition as their blubber was alarmingly thin.

As southern right whales feed in Antarctica the greatest portion of their diet comes from krill. Here it points out that as krill may grow scarcer with global warming so to may southern right whales.

With this in mind we cannot help but revisit the certification of Antarctic krill as a sustainable fishery. The growing number of whale deaths is only one example of the far-reaching effects of a decline in Antarctic krill that would surely dramatically exacerbate with an opening of the fishery.

As we mentioned in prior posts there were blatant holes in the methodology in MSC certification that make their claims questionable – most notably their decision not to classify bottom trawling as a destructive fishing practice. With such an example of obvious turning of blind eye and what is an at best inexact science surrounding the process of determining safe levels of krill to extract, certification for the krill fishery in the Southern Ocean is dangerous.

Right whales are only one example of the spreading effects of krill declines from climate change and human extraction. It will be interesting to see if there are similar trends among the penguin populations and other animals that rely on this base of the Antarctic food chain.

Why is illegal fishing a big deal?

One of our organization's key issues is protecting Southern Ocean fisheries from illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. It can be difficult to convince people that human access to an important source of food should be limited. Nevertheless, cracking down on IUU fishing isn't about stopping people from eating fish, but about cracking down on environmentally destructive criminal behavior, as recent stories have made clear.

As this story points out, some illegal fishermen engage in environmentally unsound practices, such as bottom trawling and driftnets, that can damage ecosystems and thus the long-term health of fisheries. Skirting regulations involving the size of mesh used for nets, for example, might result in catches of younger specimens, which makes it difficult for the population to continue to reproduce its numbers. While the IUU fishermen can move on to other areas in search of the best fish stocks, small fishermen do not have the technology or the resources to do the same.

When these fishermen don't follow the rules, their actions therefore can have huge impacts on people and ecosystems. In Africa illegal fishermen may have deprived governments there of close to $1 billion in licensing fees. One BBC reporter who visited Sierra Leone heard tales from local fishermen harassed and intimidated by foreign fishing boats who entered zones reserved for local use. These extremely poor Sierra Leonean fishermen also complain that they have difficulty catching their usual amounts of fish because of the huge numbers taken by foreign ships. Eventually, fisheries could be depleted irrevocably, robbing struggling countries of important natural resources and leaving them to deal with environmental damage.

Recently, the NGO Oceana reported on another dimension of the IUU fishing problem - the connection between some IUU fishing boats and drug smuggling. Oceana notes that a man recently arrested for cocaine smuggling owned boats that it had repeatedly accused of IUU fishing. Fish poachers are much more likely to be criminals than to be poor people simply trying to earn a living. Lax enforcement of existing fishing regulations only encourages criminal behavior - of many kinds - at sea.

Unreported catches can additionally complicate the problem of setting sustainable catch limits. Responsible fisheries management requires an accurate idea of the size and age composition of fish populations, which cannot be accomplished if no one knows how many fish are taken. As the Newfoundland cod fishery collapse demonstrates, sometimes even drastic actions by policymakers may come too late to allow fish stocks to recover from unsustainable harvest levels. Good fisheries management practices ensure healthy fish stocks and healthy oceans for years to come and prevent economic and environmental problems.

So what can the average person do to avoid seafood from illegal operations? A good start is the Blue Ocean Institute's Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood, which can point you in the direction of well-managed, sustainable seafood. Oceana has great suggestions about how you can take action to change the policies that encourage or tolerate unsustainable fishing.