The 620,000-tonne trigger threshold in CCAMLR Area 48 was reached by 12 August 2026, closing the krill fishery for the second year running. In 2025, the threshold was hit by 1 August.
The closure follows the rule set by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, known as CCAMLR. The trigger threshold for Area 48 is 620,000 tonnes. When the fleet reaches it, the season stops. The total catch volume is not what most concerns scientists; the worry is where the catch is taken.
Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, grows only a few centimetres long and sits at the base of the Southern Ocean food web. Penguins, seals, whales, seabirds and fish depend on it directly or indirectly. Its commercial value is also rising, mainly as feed for aquaculture and as omega-3 products.
Fleet concentrated in feeding grounds
Kim S. Bernard, a marine biologist at Oregon State University, has spent 16 years studying Antarctic krill and points to the spatial concentration of the fishery. Vessel movement data from Global Fishing Watch show that in 2026 the fleet worked mainly in the Bransfield Strait and Gerlach Strait on the Antarctic Peninsula, and north-west of the South Orkney Islands. Large parts of the rest of Area 48 saw little or no krill fishing.
Those waters are also important feeding grounds for penguins, seals and whales. Krill is not spread evenly across the Southern Ocean; it forms large, locally concentrated swarms. When fleets fish those swarms intensively, even a quota set with caution can have local impacts.
Sub-area scheme expired without a successor
Until 2024, CCAMLR allocated krill fishing across sub-areas in addition to the total allowable catch. The scheme was meant to keep a large share of the catch from coming out of a few ecologically important regions. It expired without a successor, and fishing has since concentrated in individual areas. The Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition says catches in Area 48.1, around the Antarctic Peninsula, have risen significantly compared with previous years.
The industry response is that the current rule works: once the 620,000-tonne threshold is reached, the season closes. It also says the catch represents less than one per cent of the krill biomass in Area 48, based on the estimate from a major CCAMLR survey in 2019.
October meeting will decide where krill can be caught
The question now is where krill may be caught and how quotas should be allocated across space. At the next CCAMLR annual meeting in October, members are set to resume talks on modernised management of the krill fishery. A large marine protected area around the Antarctic Peninsula is also on the agenda.
The outcome matters because krill is one of the foundations of the Antarctic food web. The same shoals the fleet targets also feed a large share of Southern Ocean wildlife.
For a traveller planning a Peninsula voyage, the useful question to an operator is how their itinerary accounts for active krill fishing in the Bransfield and Gerlach straits. The October CCAMLR decision will shape where that fishing is allowed next season.