Setting a precautionary catch limit for Antarctic krill

• Published in: Oceanography
• Main Authors: Hewitt, R. P., Watkins, J. L., Naganobu, M., Tshernyshkov, P., Brierley, A. S., Demer, D. A., Kasatkina, S., Takao, Y., Goss, C., Malyshko, A., Brandon, M. A., Kawaguchi, S., Siegel, V., Trathan, P. N., Emery, J. H., Everson, I., Miller, D. G. M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: Antarctic; Scotia Sea; Southern Ocean; Antarc*; Antarctic Krill; Euphausia superba
• Online Access: https://oro.open.ac.uk/17758/; https://oro.open.ac.uk/17758/1/15.3_hewitt_et_al.pdf; http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/15_3.html; 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-inillion-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.