Setting a precautionary catch limit for Antarctic krill

• Published in: Oceanography
• Main Authors: Hewitt, Roger P., Watkins, Jon L., Naganobu, Mikio, Tshernyshkov, Pavel, Brierley, Andrew S., Demer, David A., Kasatkina, Svetlana, Takao, Yoshimi, Goss, Cathy, Malyshko, Alexander, Brandon, Mark A., Kawaguchi, So, Siegel, Volker, Trathan, Philip N., Emery, Jennifer H., Everson, Inigo, Miller, Denzil G.M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Oceanography Society 2002
• Subjects: Marine Sciences; Ecology and Environment; Antarctic; Scotia Sea; Southern Ocean; Antarc*; Antarctic Krill; Euphausia superba
• Online Access: http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/13401/; https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/13401/1/15-3_hewitt.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2002.12

A revised precautionary catch limit for Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) in the Scotia Sea of 4 million tons was recently adopted by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). The limit was based on a total biomass of 44.3 million tons, as estimated from an acoustic and net survey of krill across the Scotia Sea sector of the Southern Ocean, and a harvest rate of 9.1%, as determined from an analysis of the risks of exceeding defined conservation criteria. We caution, however, that before the fishery can expand to the 4-million-ton level it will be necessary to establish mechanisms to avoid concentration of fishing effort, particularly in proximity to colonies of land-breeding krill predators, and to consider the effects of krill immigrating into the region from multiple sources.