The whales’ favorite food and the southern ecosystem’s keystone
Composed of small open-water crustaceans, krill is one of the most abundant species in terms of biomass on Earth. This is a crucial link in the ocean food chain and therefore the entire planet. Cetaceans, which is the staple diet, eat 1900 kilograms per second, or 60 million tonnes per year. A whale of 30 meters weighing 170 tonnes can eat up to 4 tons of krill a day!
Krill is increasingly threathened by industrial fishing for aquaculture fishmeal or to be freeze-dried or processed into oil, prized for its rich omega 3 content.
Real factories to empty the southern seas
The Norwegians, already known with the Japanese, for not respecting the moratorium on whaling, decided first to fish for krill on a large scale. In recent years, it is the Chinese who have emerged in the southern seas and who see in krill a solution to feed their huge population. The new 115 meters long vessel, controlled by the Chinese group Jiangsu Sunline Deep Sea Fisheries, should be equipped with a new pumping system for krill, more effective than the nets.
So far the krill fishery suffered operating conditions that made it uneconomical: huge losses of krill in trawl nets due to the fragility of carpaces shrimp, distant destinations, cold, …
Krill is one of the last great wilderness on the planet.
