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Krill pictured off Anvers Island, Antarctica.
Why NOAA is banning krill harvest off the West Coast
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff | 07.15.09
On Monday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) prohibited krill harvesting off the US West Coast. The ban goes into effect Aug. 12.
Krill are tiny shrimplike creatures. They eat algae and, occasionally, other little critters. Ultimately, we all rely on photosynthetic organisms for our daily bread – they’re the only organisms able to use the sun’s energy to directly create carbohydrates.
In the marine realm, it’s krill that play the important role of converting plant matter into flesh. Anything that’s not a vegetarian – and that includes whales, seals, and many, many fish – relies on krill, or similar shrimplike creatures (like copepods), to convert plant matter into animal protein and fat.
Salmon eat them; that’s how they get their characteristic orangish color. So does the blue whale. That tells you something about the little shrimp’s abundance. There are enough to support the largest animal ever to have existed.
Indeed, judged by sheer biomass – the combined weight of all living individuals – Antarctic krill are the single most successful animal on the planet. And they support large, both literally and figuratively, quantities of life. If you were to put all the world’s marine mammals on a scale, you’d find half that mass came from the krill-rich waters surrounding Antarctica. That includes one-fifth of the world’s whales. All that is because of krill.
Greenpeace says of krill:
It is currently the largest fishery in the Southern Ocean (Everson 2000). The market for krill is expected to grow in line with increasing demand globally for aquaculture feed (Nicol & Foster 2003). Previous difficulties related to rapid spoiling of the catch and high levels of fluoride leaching from the shells into the meat have largely been overcome by improved and more rapid on-board processing techniques. Some facilities exist aboard vessels to manufacture bio-diesel from krill. The decline in sea ice in the south-western Atlantic has enabled the krill fishery to operate year round (Smetacek & Nicol 2005). This and the improved processing methods have effectively removed the last constraints that were limiting growth of this fishery. In addition, the development of new products is taking place, including the production of krill oil rich in omega-3 fatty acids as a human dietary supplement.
There are no krill fisheries yet in the 200-mile wide exclusive economic zone off the US West Coast. But, as Greenpeace points out, demand for krill is on the rise. Usually, harvested krill are ground and squeezed into meal or oil that goes to feed livestock or fish. But some foresee a fish food shortage.
There’s already talk that rising fishmeal prices will spark a krill war in the Southern Ocean. And a 2002 report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Program used the term “fish meal trap” to refer to that moment when supply of the a limited resource (fish meal) would no longer meet demand — a peak fish moment.
Even with stable (neither increasing nor decreasing) supplies of raw fish for fishmeal production, it is also argued that the growing demand for fishmeal will continue to drive the price of fishmeal and fish oil upwards. Upon reaching a certain price level, the use of fishmeal and fish oil may no longer be financially viable.
It goes without saying that environmentalists would rather avoid that scenario. By the time market prices respond to a scarcity in fish and/or krill meal, who knows how many marine animals will have starved to death. So more than anything, the NOAA krill ban may be proactive step toward protecting the California food web – especially large, slow-breeding animals such as whales that already suffer from low numbers.
And that’s how many are hailing it:
Mother Jones says, “Today’s rule is a rare instance of foresight in fisheries management, designed to preserve the foundation of a healthy marine foodweb in the California Current ecosystem, including its five National Marine Sanctuaries.”
Oceana’s Ben Enticknap tells the AP: “It’s proactive and precautionary taking action now before there is a crisis, rather than waiting for a big problem to occur and then having to deal with it.”
The West Coast has seen firsthand what happens when krill stocks collapse. In 2003, rockfish populations off California tanked, reports the AP. Then, in 2005, sea birds and other marine life began showing signs of starvation. Scientists eventually blamed a plummeting krill population.
It wasn’t from overfishing, though: 2004-’05 was an El Nino year, a periodic warming of the western eastern Pacific. That’s when warm surface waters halt the upwelling of cooler, nutrient-rich waters from the deep. Primary productivity slows, and so does everything that depends on it.
Comments
2. editorial | 07.16.09
Response from the writer to Comment 1: Eric Klieber is correct. The “we” in that sentence should more obviously exclude chemosynthesizers, as well as organisms that may use radioactivity as an energy source . The point of the — in retrospect — overly broad generalization was the following: were photosynthesizers to suddenly disappear, terrestrial and marine ecosystems would collapse mightily. Not only would an important source of organic carbon have disappeared; so would an even more important source of oxygen. Oxygen, of course, is what makes complex life, as we understand it, possible to begin with. That includes the giant clams, tubeworms and other multicellular critters living around deep sea vents. Deep as they are, even they rely on the byproducts of photosynthesis.
3. sharkfin | 07.17.09
Save krill the keystone species…Norway is catching as much as they possibly can, creating a massive ecosystem collapse
4. Jeff Dunsavage | 07.17.09
This is the one of the most important issues in the world that nearly no one has ever heard of. Thanks for highlighting it.
5. FirstPostToday | 07.18.09
It’s quite possible that, again, we’re being duped by the “sky is falling*”mentality, and we have to ask ourselves why would anyone misconstrue the facts. See the antagonists view and then draw your own conclusions.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/21/Krill-Sustainability.aspx
*sky is falling,*we’re going to suffocate with CO2,*there is a water shortage* Iraq has WMD’s, *etc, *etc.
6. Mercola is a clown | 07.20.09
Dr. Mercola is a salesman, and like all salesman, he has a bias. His love for krill is prompted by nothing but greed.
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1. Eric Klieber | 07.16.09
The statement, “Ultimately, we all rely on photosynthetic organisms for our daily bread…” is not true. Many bacteria rely on chemosynthesis, i.e., using the chemical energy in the environment to convert inorganic carbon to carbohydrates. The most obvious example is the deep sea hydrothermal vents. However, no matter where we have drilled into the earth, we have found bacteria that live off the chemical energy in the surrounding rocks. Given the enormous mass of near surface rock , it is possible chemosythesis exceeds photosynthesis as a source of organic carbon.