The Allankay, skippered by James Brook, is set for its fourth Antarctic trip to expose the krill fishing industry. Photo / Alex Robertson, Sea Shepherd
While most of us have been enjoying a break over Christmas and maybe looking forward to kicking back as the weather (hopefully) improves, the crew of the Allankay have been putting the final touches to months of preparation for another trip to Antarctica.
The ship is one of four operated by the Sea Shepherd environmental group, said skipper James Brook, and will be on its fourth trip to the Southern Ocean to shine a light on the secretive krill fishing industry threatening the food supply of whales, penguins, fur seals, fish and seabirds as well as an important regulator of global climates.
“Krill is a shrimp-like animal, they’re pretty small but they’re the foundation food for just about any kind of Antarctic animal you can imagine,” Brook said aboard the 54m Allankay moored at Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour.
“There are about 14 supertrawlers that are operating in that area. They are technically legal and they are hoovering up krill out of the ocean down there.”
Brook’s crew have spent three months preparing the Allankay for the rigours of the Southern Ocean where there’s not much to impede the winds that whip around the globe, building mountainous seas.
“When you’re down in those oceans the swell is very, very big,” said Brook. “It’s going to take us at least three weeks to go from Auckland to the bottom of South America and if you look at the weather you can see there are storms going across continuously.”
The storms move quicker than a ship so there’s no way of avoiding them, Brook said. He’s seen some fierce conditions on his expeditions south with waves sometimes more than 10m high.
“You have to stop what you’re doing and turn the bow into the seas and just go at a fairly slow speed and try to ride the waves,” he said.
“When you’re at the bottom of a trough you can’t see the top of the wave. The bow will rise to the top and the ship will fall off the wave and slam down, sliding sideways down and the bow will bury underwater. Then it will surface and repeat.
“I’ve been like that for two or three days where you’re just trying to ride it out.”
Equipment failure can be a death sentence in those conditions, hence the intense preparation and maintenance.
There is also sea ice and bergs to look out for, which can hole a ship, Brook said, adding at least one vessel is lost in Antarctica every year, according to statistics.
The reason for the dangerous voyage is to try to bring an end to what Sea Shepherd claims is an industry that is lucrative to the operators but unnecessary and poses an existential threat to wildlife and the wider planet.
Krill is used as an omega-3 health food supplement (which can be sourced from plant-based alternatives), pet food and in salmon farming to colour the flesh pink.
Scientists believe the krill population has fallen by about 80% since the 1970s for reasons that are not entirely known and it doesn’t need any more threats.
“We can’t confront them directly but what we’re doing is we hunt the fleet and then we document them, we film them, and they don’t like that because that puts a spotlight on what they are doing,” Brook said.
“We suspect they do some illegal activities such as discharging the effluent after they’ve processed the krill. We’re trying to get evidence of them doing illegal activities down there.”
He won’t reveal how they find the trawlers as it could counter the element of surprise, one of the organisation’s strongest cards.
The 15-strong crew is made up of bridge officers, engineers, cooks and deck hands.
Long-serving Sea Shepherd activists such as Brook, a qualified skipper who could earn big money in the oil and gas industry, are usually paid but there are also plenty of volunteers, with crew coming from around the world for the cause.
Allankay is also home to media for documenting and filming the fishing and to record any illegal activities the crew might see.
One successful legal action was brought against a ship that had caught and killed a humpback whale in its nets, with the evidence caught on camera.
There’s also a team of scientists from Stanford University who are trying to find out more about the role of krill in the oceans.
“The general public think that it’s a marine national park but it’s just not true,” Brook said.
“We’re trying to present scientific evidence to pressure CCAMLR [Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources] to create some marine sanctuaries down there.”
Brook said there was a satisfaction the Allankay is a former Patagonian toothfish vessel and is ideal for the environment they’re facing, the ship being classed as Ice C. “We’ve got a lot of confidence in this ship,” he said.
Running four ships across the world is an expensive business and Sea Shepherd is funded entirely by donations, which provides independence and integrity.
“From our perspective, we think this krill fleet is barely on the border of legality,” Brook said.
“If someone went into the national parks in New Zealand and started logging and wiping out the native wildlife that would be considered illegal.”
To find out how you can help, visit www.seashepherdglobal.org/latest-news/whale-feeding-ground-threat/
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