Chinese fishing firm Liaoyu Group set nationwide krill catch records in the most recent Antarctic fishing season, which wrapped up in early August.
Dalian, China-based Liaoyu said that its krill catch totals for the most recent season eclipsed 70,000 metric tons, (MT) and its daily high during the season exceeded 1,019 MT, both of which are records for the Chinese distant-water fleet, according to the local newspaper Liaoning Daily.
The records come as environmental organizations have pushed the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which is the regulatory body that oversees the Antarctic krill fishery, to establish new catch limit rules for krill.
"CCAMLR Member States are not meeting their obligation to protect the marine ecosystems of the Antarctic Peninsula, an area already under stress from rapid global warming,” Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition Executive Director Claire Christian said when the most recent season closed early.
The krill-fishing industry has pushed back on such claims, saying the 620,000-MT limit currently in place represents just a fraction of the overall krill biomass in the area.
“Given that the 620,000-MT catch level [that triggered] the closure represents just 11 percent of CCAMLR’s precautionary krill catch limit of 5.61 million MT for Area 48 – and less than 1 percent of the estimated krill biomass of 63 million MT in that area – this development is hardly the crisis some might suggest,” Aker QRILL Chief Policy Officer Pål Skogrand told SeafoodSource.
Recent actions taken by Liaoyu and other firms, as well as provincial governments in China, seem to align with Skogrand’s line of thinking.
Late last year, Liaoyu and the Lavinia Corporation, an Athens, Greece-based shipping company, established a joint venture aimed at building reefer vessels destined for use in the Antarctic krill fishery.
Plans for the new joint venture, which will trade under the name Fresh Cool Logistical Services and will be based in Dalian, include ordering two reefer vessels “for the transportation of Liaoyu’s krill and other fishing products from the Antarctic and worldwide and also serve the transport needs of Lavinia Corporation.”
Each vessel will have the capacity to carry weight up to 11,000 dead weight tonnage, according to the firm.
Additionally, the company recently opened a consumer-facing retail outlet that features a range of Liaoyu products, such as canned krill meat and krill oil capsules.
Other firms like Fujian Zhengguan Fishery Development Co. have recently launched modern krill-fishing supertrawlers in an attempt to increase catch.
Elsewhere, the Zhangzhou fishing port in the southern Chinese province of Fujian is offering a CNY 40 million (USD 5.6 million, EUR 4.8 million) subsidy through the municipal government that will be put toward purchasing new Antarctic krill-fishing vessels as part of a support package to help expand the local distant-water fleet.
