‘It smells like a rancid fish and chip shop’: at sea with the Antarctic’s krill supertrawlers

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It is bitterly cold on the deck of the Allankay and the bosun, Luca Massari, is checking that none of us are wearing contact lenses before we descend into Antarctic waters. There is a risk, he warns, that lenses will freeze solid over the eyes. Massari himself is prepared for his surroundings. He is wearing thick goggles that make him look like an Olympic ski jumper.

Massari is a burly, heavily tattooed veteran of the environmental organisation Sea Shepherd, which campaigns against exploitating the oceans. His deck team are preparing to launch the ship’s small boat, which Massari will helm. Eight of us are bundled in bright red dry suits, helmets and lifejackets; the average time to survive hypothermia in this wind-whipped water is just five minutes.

I am in the waters off Coronation Island in the South Orkney Islands, a glaciated 25-mile finger of jagged mountain slopes a day’s sail from the Antarctic peninsula. It is as isolated as a place can be. Yet Sea Shepherd contends that it is the site of one of the most inaccessible and environmentally ruinous industrial workplaces on Earth.

Sea Shepherd is referring to fishing for krill – the small, shrimp-like marine crustaceans (Euphausia superba) that feed on plankton and are the main food source for larger marine animals. They also have a huge commercial value, turned into the ruby-red fish oil capsules sold in healthfood stores as well as the fishmeal used to give farm-fed salmon its pink hue. The trade is valued at more than $450m (£335m)a year.

A grey ship can be seen behind birds flying over the sea

A man in an orange suit and goggles stands on a boat deck

This trade is legal and regulated by an intergovernmental body. It sets an annual quota – 620,000 tonnes at present – and the ships in these waters compete with one another to get the biggest and most lucrative share before the cap is reached.

The Antarctic ecosystem relies on krill, a foundational food source for the region’s birds, penguins, seals and whales. And there is evidence to suggest that krill fishing is already having a significant impact on the Antarctic food chain. A peer-reviewed scientific study from a coalition of US and German universities suggest that the number of krill in the ocean is insufficient to sustain the existing whale population and commercial fishing.

Other studies show that humpback whales are breeding less, as are species of penguin. Less krill brings other environmental downsides. Krill are “carbon-storage powerhouses”, according to WWF research; less of them means more carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.

Lots of krill lit up against a dark background

The Allankay, which has sailed 34 days from New Zealand by way of Argentina to Coronation Island, is here to document the krill fishing.

Once Massari’s small boat, with us onboard, is given permission by Allankay’s captain to set down on Antarctic waters, we begin our slow dropdown. The winch is firm, its operator experienced and yet still the boat shudders as we hit the waves. Immediately, we are dwarfed by the 12 giant ships of the krill fleet around us, flying the flags of China, Chile, Norway, South Korea and a Ukrainian vessel registered in Namibia.

Last year, about 620,000 tonnes of krill were trawled in the Antarctic – a record haul brought to a halt only because the trigger limit was reached. Figures from previous years have shown that Norway takes the largest share of the catch, followed by China. Much of the krill is caught in the waters around Coronation Island.

A whale surfaces near the back of a fishing vessel at sea

The scene before us is a surreal fusion of nature and humanity. Vessels are loading throbbing green nets resembling 20-metre sausage crammed with krill into their holds, while albatrosses and hundreds of petrels with their distinctive black and white wings swoop in their wake. Whales’ flukes, or tails, peek above the water and baby penguins leap alongside like butterfly swimmers.

Allankay’s crew of 16 men and 15 women is drawn from 12 countries. Most of them are volunteers. One is Luci Connelly, an Australian deckhand navigating Massari’s small boat. “The smell of these krill trawlers is like a rancid fish and chip shop,” she says.

We barrel closer, showered by the spray, Connelly’s description becoming ever more apt. I regret not bringing a nose clip – the pong is pungent.

The Sea Shepherd campaign has two stages. This is the first: a fight for attention. Later the scientists will come, continuing research on the impact of industrial fishing on the Antarctic’s whales.

Three large ships on water. A man facing away from the camera in orange stands at the right-hand side of the image looking at the boats

Attracting attention to any cause in this social media age means creating captivating content. Hence, Massari makes his sorties, piloting the small boat with practised ease so the photographers and videographers can get their footage.

The small boat crests past icebergs with bluish tinges to edge close to three Chinese flagged vessels within kissing distance of each other. The main boat is the Fu Yuan Yu 9199, a new Chinese factory ship that trawls for krill, processes them into various products and packs them to be shipped out in the adjacent ship. The Fu Yuan Yu 9199 is 139-metres long and as we bobbed in its wake, a crane was ferrying packaged crates of krill meal. The third ship is a fuel bunkering vessel resupplying the main Chinese ship.

Orange-clad workers on the Chinese ships ignore us, but crew on other vessels wage their own version of an information campaign. The two Norwegian supertrawlers, Antarctic Sea and Antarctic Endurance, unfurl banners with various messages including “Congratulations on the High Seas Treaty”, “Science First” and the address of a website maintained by Aker Biomarine, a company that supplies krill as an ingredient in health products.

The company’s website notes that it operates “under the strict governance of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources [CCAMLR]. Catch limits are capped at less than 1% of the total krill biomass … and every operation is monitored by independent observers.”

A small boat full of people dressed in orange goes past a large fishing trawler on the sea

The goal of Sea Shepherd’s latest campaign is to stop all krill fishing in the Antarctic, an epic challenge considering CCAMLR is consensus based. Its membership includes the countries trawling around Coronation Island and they cannot reach consensus on conservation measures.

In a statement, CCAMLR says: “While most members voiced an urgent need to distribute the catch to avoid over-concentration at the commission’s last session in October 2025, to date there has been no scientific evidence to suggest any specific threat to krill as a keystone species or to Antarctic marine ecosystems more broadly.” At that meeting, Norway proposed almost doubling the catch trigger limit.

For Sea Shepherd, the industry’s expansion is outpacing the time needed to gather information to assess consequences of the trade. “Without robust evidence to assess ecological impacts, the push to raise catch trigger limits risks irreversible damage to one of our planet’s last true wildernesses,” says Baptiste Brebel, the Allankay’s chief officer. Hence, their twin efforts harnessing media and science in these frigid waters to head off what they believe is a tipping point for the region’s krill and the animals that live off it.

Massari zips the boat back to the relative shelter of the Allankay. Connelly attaches the winch and signals to the operator above for us to be raised up again. The Allankay feels like firm ground after hours bobbing around on the small boat.

Massari is excited by what the camera crew has captured. “Every small boat journey helps our wider mission,” he says, as he takes off his goggles.

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