How Krill Fishing Became One of the Most Sustainable Practices in Commercial Fishing

Global fishing has a well-documented bycatch problem. Antarctic krill harvesting was built, almost from the start, to be the exception.

What to know:

• Standard crustacean fisheries discard an average of 32.4% of everything they catch as unwanted bycatch — among the highest rates of any fishing category. Antarctic krill fishing, using a different harvesting method, avoids this almost entirely.
• Only about 0.3–1% of the estimated krill biomass in the Southern Ocean's Area 48 is harvested annually, under strict international regulation.
• Roughly half of the entire krill population is eaten by natural predators every year regardless of fishing — the population turns over fast enough that regulated harvesting barely registers.

Commercial fishing has an image problem, and in a lot of cases, it's earned. A 2020 benchmarking study of global fisheries discards, published in Scientific Reports, estimated that the world's fishing fleets throw back roughly 10.8% of everything they catch, dead or dying — bycatch, not the fish anyone meant to catch. Some fishing methods are far worse than that average. Shrimp trawling accounts for only about 2% of the world's total catch by weight, but produces more than a third of all global bycatch, with discard ratios as high as 20 pounds tossed back for every pound kept.

Krill is a crustacean — in the same broad category as shrimp — and crustacean fisheries as a group have the highest average discard rate of any fishing type in the world, at 32.4%. On paper, that's the company Antarctic krill fishing keeps. In practice, it's one of the only fisheries in that category that looks nothing like the average.

The difference comes down to how the krill is actually caught. Instead of hauling a full net on deck and sorting through everything afterward — the method responsible for most bycatch industry-wide — our krill is harvested using a continuous trawl connected directly to the vessel by hose. Non-target species are automatically separated out and released back into the ocean, largely unharmed, without ever being pulled fully from the water.

Krill harvesting in the Southern Ocean is governed by CCAMLR, an international body that regulates fishing across Area 48 — the only region where commercial krill fishing is permitted. Of the roughly 60 million tons of krill and other species harvested there each year across the entire fishery, only a small fraction is krill, taken from a total estimated biomass in the hundreds of millions of tons. It's one of the most conservatively managed fisheries on Earth.

That regulation is backed by independent verification, not just self-reporting. A 2015 Sustainable Fisheries Partnership assessment of 24 reduction-fishery stocks worldwide rated our Antarctic krill fishery the only one earning an "A" grade — the highest rating given, and the only one in its category. It's also Marine Stewardship Council certified, with 100% traceability: every batch can be traced back to the exact GPS coordinates of its harvest.

There's one more structural advantage worth noting: krill live and are caught in open water, not on the seafloor. Bottom trawling — responsible for roughly 28% of the world's total catch — drags heavy gear across the ocean floor, flattening coral and sponge habitat that can take centuries to recover. Krill harvesting never touches the seafloor at all.

Sustainability claims are common in the supplement industry. What's less common is the infrastructure behind them: our krill supplier has invested more than $500 million over the past decade specifically in sustainable harvesting technology, and has partnered with WWF-Norway since 2008 for independent oversight — not just a certification purchased once and renewed on paper.

It's also why our packaging follows the same logic as our sourcing: glass bottles and aluminum lids, both recyclable, instead of the ocean plastic that a genuinely ocean-sourced brand shouldn't be contributing to in the first place.

Final word: Sustainability claims are easy to print on a label. What separates a real one is whether it holds up when you look at the regulation, the harvesting method, and who's independently checking the work — and on all three, Antarctic krill fishing has receipts most of the fishing industry doesn't.

Written by the Oceanutra Team
Curious exactly how your Antarctic Krill Oil is sourced? Visit the product page for the full traceability story →

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

References
1. Gilman E, Perez Roda A, Huntington T, Kennelly SJ, Suuronen P, Chaloupka M, Medley PAH. Benchmarking global fisheries discards. Sci Rep. 2020;10:14017. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-71021-x.