Your World of Legal Intelligence
 United Kingdom | +44 (0) 20 7284 8080

Researchers in Antarctica to help safeguard vital krill stocks.

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date21 March 2024

M2 PRESSWIRE-March 21, 2024-: Researchers in Antarctica to help safeguard vital krill stocks

(C)1994-2024 M2 COMMUNICATIONS

RDATE:21032024

At the same time, populations of baleen whales, a major consumer of krill, are in recovery. Fin whales - the second largest baleen whale after the blue whale, had been hunted to near extinction. Now they are growing in number, returning to historic feeding grounds, and finding themselves in competition with fishing vessels.

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is the international body which sets limits on how much Antarctic krill can be caught, where and when. These catch limits are measured in thousands of tonnes across vast swathes of ocean, but krill are particularly concentrated in smaller shelf areas close to land which are frequented by both predators and fishing vessels.

To address this mismatch in scales, CCAMLR plans to implement finer scale management procedures. To inform this, the researchers from the University of Southampton, the British Antarctic Survey, the University of California Santa Cruz, and the Scottish Association for Marine Science are collecting data to better understand the distribution of foraging fin whales, Antarctic krill and fishing vessels.

Team members from the University of California Santa Cruz are fitting two different types of tags to fin whales. CATS tags provide short-term detailed data, monitoring swimming speed, direction, body orientation and more, while LIMPET tags provide longer-term information on the location and behaviour of the whales.

Dr Reisinger adds: "Tagging whales helps us to understand in far greater detail where and how whales feed on krill, information that is essential for us to manage and conserve Southern Ocean ecosystems. We know surprisingly little about how the largest whales - including fin whales - behave in Antarctica".

The researchers are using echosounders - a type of sonar - to locate and measure swarms of krill. These are fitted to the bottom of the research vessel and a new type...

To continue reading

Request your trial
COPYRIGHT Normans Media Ltd.

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT