Krill is small in size up to 6 cm and are most abundant on the planet in terms of weight. Now they are not only the pet catch for Snow petrel even humans are also hunting it in a big way. Krill with modern technology can be used in fish feed, human dietary supplements, soya sauce flavouring, pharmaceuticals, or even to clean the masterpiece paintings.
Krill is referred to as Antarctica’s ‘pink gold’ which if fed to farmed salmon cut out the need for colorants to make the flesh pink. It is extremely rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, linked to health benefits for people. Krill is abundantly occurs in the Southern Ocean and are pet food for seals, penguins and whales.
As human demand of fish oils is growing it is likely to bring more competition from trawlers from krill which is a mater of concern that it should not be overfished. Stephen Nicol, a krill expert at the Australian Antarctic Division, said that the krill catch is expected to go up with other countries getting involved in it.
But Jerry Leape, director of the Antarctic Krill Conservation Project at the Pew Environment Group in the United States, said that the krill is not over-fished ocean-wide. He informed that the krill is a major staple food for many natural predators. The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CAMLR) sets quotas for krill catches and now it reckoned catches could rise to 1 percent of the total biomass of krill, or 5 million tonnes a year if the total was 500 million tonnes.
Now the question arise what happens if the sea ice disappears in which krill spawns quickly.
