In two tows, Bernard and Funkey caught just 49 krill. Most were about a year old and less than a half-inch long. “It used to be so easy to catch krill,” said Bernard, looking a bit forlorn at the lean catch. “But in the last five or six years we’re seeing dramatic declines.Declining Krill stocks are allowing other competing zooplankton to grow such as the small translucent salps. Similar to a jellyfish in looks, however not a jellyfish, scientists are still trying to figure out if salps and krill can cohabit the same area and whether they have the nutritional value of krill up the food chain. Salps are more common in temperate water zones, however they seem to fare better in warmer waters than krill would.
Attention to ocean protection has to come from the base forms of food and life, protecting individual species does not work if the ecosystem is left unmonitored and unsustainable.
For more information on the work being done on the Krill populations read Susan Morans blog
