The krill fishing fleet operated outside public scrutiny until we brought the cameras and international media to them. But while images and eye witness accounts can get the world’s attention, the missing piece of the puzzle was always the science. 

But this year that all changed when independent scientists, hosted onboard the Allankay, transformed the expedition from one using documentation to shine a spotlight on the destructive krill industry into one of the most significant recent scientific surveys of the South Orkney Islands region. Among them were Dr. Matthew Savoca of Stanford University Hopkins Marine Station, Dr. Ted Cheeseman of UC Santa Cruz and co-founder of Happywhale, Dr. Matt Germishuizen of University of Pretoria in South Africa, and Matt Koller.

These independent researchers spent several weeks, aided by Sea Shepherd’s crew, gathering scientific evidence directly in the field.

RETURNING TO THE SOUTH ORKNEY ISLANDS

When the Allankay returned to the waters off Coronation Island – the largest of the South Orkney Islands – the reaction from researchers onboard was immediate. Even scientists who had spent their careers studying whales were stunned by what they encountered.

“It’s amazing to see that kind of abundance of animals,” said Cheeseman. “This is a world where most of these whales were killed.”

The significance of that reaction cannot be overstated. These are scientists accustomed to working in marine ecosystems across the globe, yet the density of whales in the South Orkney Islands still surprised them. Their awe confirmed what Sea Shepherd crews had been feeling across multiple campaigns: the Southern Ocean is not an empty, frozen wilderness at the edge of the world. It is one of the planet’s great living systems.

“We rediscovered — or are in the process of rediscovering and resharing with the world — the fact that the South Orkney Islands are one of the world’s great wildlife hotspots,” said Dr. Matthew Savoca of Stanford University Hopkins Marine Station.

In these waters, humpback whales lunge-feed through dense krill swarms while fin whales surface nearby. Seabirds glide and dive overhead. Penguins and seals move through the same ecosystem. Beneath the surface lies the foundation supporting all of it: Antarctic krill, one of the most important species in the Southern Ocean food web.

For much of the past century, this ecosystem was devastated by industrial whaling. Entire populations of whales were pushed to the brink of collapse. The recovery now underway is one of the most extraordinary wildlife returns on Earth, and the South Orkney Islands appear to be one of the places where that recovery is unfolding most dramatically.

“This is like Yosemite National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Denali National Park all wrapped up into one,” Cheeseman said. “And it’s not a protected area. It’s an industrial fishing zone. Is that really our values? I don’t think so.”

The expedition documented not only large-scale feeding aggregations, but the return of behaviors nearly erased by commercial whaling.

“Commercial whaling almost eliminated humpback whales; it eliminated all their behaviors from the oceans,” Savoca said.

The research team observed the return of complex social feeding behaviors such as bubble-net feeding humpback whales and echelon feeding fin whales.

At the same time, the scientists stressed that recovery remains fragile and incomplete.

“Blue whales are not even close to being recovered.”

The abundance the scientists witnessed was not just emotionally powerful. It also raised urgent scientific and political questions. If the South Orkney Islands are one of the Southern Ocean’s most important whale feeding grounds, what does it mean that the same waters are also among the most heavily targeted by industrial krill fishing vessels?

WHY THE SCIENCE MATTERS

Unlike illegal whaling, krill fishing is legal and internationally managed through the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). That distinction matters because protecting the Southern Ocean will depend not only on public outrage, but on scientific evidence capable of influencing international policy.

Despite what everyone could now see with their own eyes, the krill industry continues to insist the Antarctic krill fishery was sustainable. But Sea Shepherd’s fourth Antarctic Defense Campaign marks a decisive shift in how the story is being told.

When making regulatory decisions, CCAMLR currently applies what’s called a Precautionary Principle that considers impacts on penguins and seals, but excludes whales. This represents a critical regulatory gap. But the data that has been gathered on this expedition will underpin peer-reviewed publications that will carry more weight at CCAMLR than campaign footage ever has. 

“It’s one thing for Sea Shepherd to see that and report on it,” said Peter Hammarstedt, Sea Shepherd Global’s Director of Campaigns. “It’s an entirely different thing for independent researchers to be able to gather data and present that data to the people who make policy.”

That need for evidence shaped the 2026 expedition. For Savoca, the scale of the opportunity was unusually significant.

“This is a very rare opportunity; this is the longest scientific survey of this region.”

The Southern Ocean remains one of the least studied marine ecosystems on Earth, particularly in the exact areas now experiencing concentrated industrial krill extraction. At the same time, the krill industry continues to argue that fishing pressure in Antarctica is sustainable and scientifically managed.

The importance of this expedition lies not only in what was witnessed, but in what was systematically recorded. The team documented repeated spatial overlap between dense whale aggregations and active krill fishing operations.

“One very clear pattern is that when we’re near the krill fishers, there are a lot of whales,” Cheeseman said. “There’s potential habitat conflict, food resource conflict, right? That’s a hypothesis, but my job as a scientist is to try to disprove that. And if I can’t disprove that, it might be true.”

The researchers also emphasized that whales themselves are essential participants of ocean health, not simply consumers within the ecosystem.

“When whales are eating a bunch of krill or a bunch of fish, and then they have to poop a lot of that material out, that material is really useful to recycle those nutrients to the base of the marine food web,” Savoca said. “Fishing is the opposite. We take that productivity away.”

This is why the science matters so profoundly. Images alone can be dismissed by policy makers. Industry talking points can attempt to reframe what people see. But independently gathered ecological data — collected in the field, over weeks of observation, by credentialed scientists — becomes much harder to ignore inside the institutions responsible for managing Antarctica’s future.

As the expedition progressed, crew and scientists worked side by side: gathering measurements, filming industrial fishing operations, and documenting whale aggregations in real time. Sea Shepherd’s media team onboard doubled efforts to bring one of the world’s most remote ecosystems into public view through a nine-part web series, “Edge of the World: Krill Crisis”, where the beauty and wonder of Antarctica and its wildlife are shown in stark contrast to the industrial krill fishing operations. 

“I think the place speaks for itself,” Savoca said. “We just have to bring the place to people.”

What happens next will depend on how this evidence is used: in scientific research, in public pressure campaigns, and inside the policy rooms of CCAMLR, where decisions about Antarctica’s future are made.

Our efforts to end Antarctic krill fishing are already paying off in our consumer campaign targeting the global markets that drive krill extraction, such as the omega-3 supplement industry. Holland & Barrett was the first UK retailer to stop selling krill-based supplements in their stores after co-creating the Krill Pledge with Sea Shepherd this February. Since then, one manufacturer and two of the largest German drug stores have agreed to drop krill from their product lines. Germany used to be the single largest market for krill oil supplements on the planet, but now it will be impossible to find krill-derived products in over 80% of its stores. 

Public awareness, market shifts, and international scrutiny will all play a role in determining whether one of the world’s greatest marine ecosystems is protected before industrial exploitation irreversibly changes it.

For Cheeseman, the underlying logic remained simple: “All it really takes is us showing the world what there is, right? And the protection will follow”

Learn more about Operation Antarctica Defense: https://www.seashepherdglobal.org/our-campaigns/antarctica-defense/