Whales are incredible.
They're at the very top of the Southern Ocean food chain,
but it's what's near the bottom that provides the strongest links.
Like the humble Antarctic krill.
Without krill, there'd be no penguins, whales or seals.
Oh, yeah! Even their poop is precious.
But krill swim in troubled waters,
threatened by climate change and an ever growing krill fishing industry.
So the question is, do we have the will to save the tiny krill?
And what if the answer is no? Here's a story about a krill called Alan, who helped save his kind. Hey friends. Just a quick interruption.
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Look into the eyes of the Antarctic krill.
Here lies the answer to the future of one of our most fragile
and important ecosystems, the Southern Ocean.
The Southern Ocean is larger than the combined areas of China and the U.S.
It's the planet's primary absorber of heat and a significant carbon sink.
But without Antarctic krill, this whole system would simply collapse.
The Norwegian word “krill” means “small fry” or fish.
Krill aren't actually fish.
They're crustaceans like prawns and shrimp.
And they're not as small as you might think.
Adults can grow up to six centimeters long.
And they also glow!
There are around 400 million tons of Antarctic krill,
which is equivalent to the weight of all the human beings on the planet.
It's estimated that half the Antarctic krill population
disappears each year into the mouths of wild predators.
Krill also provides a secret service to the planet - with their poop.
Hundreds of trillions of krill produce a lot of poop.
These tiny threads fertilize the ocean and influence
the global climate in a continuous cycle.
Krill poop provides precious iron to microscopic
phytoplankton, which is krill major food source.
Phytoplankton remove CO2 from the atmosphere during photosynthesis.
When the krill eat phytoplankton, they also consume this carbon
and then poop it out.
And these threads of poop sink rapidly. From krill bottom to ocean bottom,
around 12 billion tonnes of carbon are transported each year to a depth
where they'll be safely locked away for centuries.
Still, not much is known about krill.
Serious research only began in the 1970s
when fishing nations eventually turned their attention to the giant swarms.
By then, the big krill eating whales had been hunted almost to extinction.
Without whales, there was theoretically a surplus of Antarctic krill.
Before industrial whaling began, around 430 million tons
of Antarctic krill had been eaten each year by baleen whales.
This wasted whale food was then touted
as a major source of protein for humans.
It was a dream that turned out to be commercially unviable
because of the high costs of processing and preserving.
But the Soviet Union was desperate to reduce its reliance on grain imports
from the West and dispatched large fishing vessels to Antarctica.
Japan also harvested Antarctic krill, but to a much lesser extent.
528,000 tons were landed in 1982, the highest catch ever recorded.
While krill were being harvested in their trillions,
scientists were discovering
the crucial role that they play in the Antarctic food chain.
Alarm bells rang.
Could krill fishing be threatening the entire ecosystem?
In response, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic
Marine Living Resources, or CCAMLR, was established.
One of its roles was to set krill catch limits
based on scientific data.
Data, that's difficult to come by in the wild.
And then along came a krill called Alan.
Alan changed the way researchers viewed krill
and helped regulate the fishing industry.
In the early eighties, a krill scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division
worked out how to keep individual krill in captivity for research.
He named one of his subjects Alan.
Up until then it was believed that Antarctic krill
grew rapidly and died at about two years of age.
Alan blew that theory out of the beaker by surviving longer
than any other captive krill had so far.
He was already two or three years old when he was taken from the Southern Ocean,
and he went on to live in the lab for a further nine years.
Until one day, while his jar was being cleaned,
Alan escaped down the plughole.
But the implications of his longevity had already been profound.
It was clear that the vast krill population in the Southern Ocean
was the product of many years, not just a few.
Here was proof that krill fishing might be unsustainable.
Alan sacrificed, provided the scientific data that led
to a far more precautionary approach to krill harvesting.
He may have saved the lives of millions of his kind,
knowing just how many there are is now more important than ever
because the krill fishing industry is rapidly expanding again.
There are new players, bigger ships and advanced technologies on the horizon.
Krill are cooked, dried and pulverized to feed farmed fish, aquarium fish
pets and livestock and are even used as fish bait.
Krill meal also enhances the color in some aquaculture species.
I mean,
why do you think premium farmed salmon is so pink?
But the real growth of the industry is being driven
by our demand for one expensive health food supplement:
Krill oil, which has become an incredibly popular
antioxidant, rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, important for heart, brain, eye
joint and skin health and it's said to be superior to other Omega-3
sources like fish oil, but without the fishy aftertaste.
The global krill oil industry is expected
to be worth 2.25 billion U.S. dollars by 2030.
So CCAMLR set a krill catch limit for the four main
fishing regions around Antarctica at 620,000 tons.
That's approximately 1% of the local krill biomass.
And this kind of fishing was considered sustainable
until now.
Scientists say that unless there is constant
vigilance, things could go terribly wrong. Because alongside the expanding krill
fishing industry, there's another, more ubiquitous threat:
global climate change.
One effect of rising CO2 levels is of particular concern for krill.
When CO2 is dissolved in the ocean, a chemical reaction
takes place that results in a rise in acidity.
Experiments at the world's only research krill aquarium in Tasmania show that krill
can adapt to small CO2 increases, but
large increases will kill their embryos.
If global CO2 emissions aren't curtailed, the entire
krill population of the Southern Ocean could collapse by the end of the century.
A disaster for the Antarctic ecosystem.
Research remains key to future decisions.
But scientific expeditions to Antarctica are becoming harder
to mount because of the world's financial situation.
There are large ships in Antarctica year round,
that could provide the perfect platform for scientific research.
And actually, they do.
They belong to the krill fishing fleet.
The fleet provides ship time and coordinates with research vessels
and scientists to conduct krill surveys on various scales.
It also collects data on fluctuating krill densities from year to year.
All of this contributes to krill fishery management. So can we have our krill oil and save the Antarctic ecosystem too? Will antarctic krill be able to adapt to the rapidly
changing Southern Ocean environment?
Do we care?
It's hard to relate to a small, shrimp-like animal.
But looking into the eyes of the humble krill
and being aware of an entire ecosystem that depends on krill, like Alan
and his trillions upon trillions of relatives -
we should at least try.
Thanks for watching!
Alan was really a cool krill.
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