Activist’s group accused of ‘terrorist attack’ in collision with Antarctic krill trawler

MIAMI (AP) — A ship operated by a group founded by anti-whaling activist Paul Watson collided with a Norwegian krill trawler off Antarctica in what the ship’s owner likened to a “terrorist attack” that endangered its crew and could have caused a disaster in the same environmentally sensitive waters the activists claim they want to protect.

A two-minute video provided to The Associated Press by the Aker QRILL Co. of Norway shows the moment Tuesday when the M/V Bandero, operated by the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, slowly steams toward the stern of the Antarctic Sea, hitting the fishing vessel on its port side at a slight angle.

The collision underscores the growing battle in the frigid Southern Ocean over the future of Antarctic krill, a shrimplike crustacean central to the diet of whales and critical buffer to global warming that’s also in demand for use in health supplements, fishmeal and other products.

Aker said Wednesday that the Bandero came within inches (centimeters) of striking a diesel tank on the fishing vessel, and put at risk a habitat teeming with multiple whale species, seals and seabirds — all feeding on the ocean’s abundant but environmentally sensitive krill population.

Krill fishing CEO calls ramming a ‘terrorist attack’

The company said its multinational crew was shaken but unharmed and it would pursue all available legal action. The company alerted naval authorities in Argentina and Chile, one of which is deploying a vessel to the area near the Antarctic peninsula where the collision took place.

Aker BioMarine CEO Matts Johansen said the ramming — the first in more than a decade in the Southern Ocean— caught the company off guard and resembled a “terrorist attack.”

“It is intended to cause harm; it’s based on ideological or political views and it’s not the way the Antarctica was intended to be managed,” Johansen said in an interview.

Activist says vessel only gave a ‘gentle nudge’ to the trawler

Watson disputed that characterization, likening the action to a deliberate but gentle nudge — a show of the kind of “aggressive nonviolence” he’s been practicing for a half century on the high seas.

“We make sure that nobody is hurt and all we did was rub a little paint off of their boat,” he said in an interview from his river boat in Paris, where he coordinates the foundation’s work.

“They try to make it look like we’re the criminals here when it comes to the environment when in fact what they’re doing is incredibly destructive,” he said of Aker.

The Bandero’s crew, led by French activist Lamya Essemlali, departed Australia in February as part of what the Watson foundation called Operation Krill Wars. Tuesday’s incident followed a tense, five-hour standoff in which the Bandero’s crew launched giant metal net shredding devices intended to disrupt fishing by two Aker vessels.

Watson founded the global Sea Shepherd conservation movement in the 1970s and for decades won a fearsome reputation for ramming vessels and other aggressive tactics in confrontations on the high seas that repeatedly landed him in jail. He was last detained in Greenland for five months in 2024 on a Japanese warrant that was later rejected by Denmark. Japan’s coast guard had sought his arrest over an encounter in 2010 in which he was accused of ordering a captain of his ship to throw explosives at what the Japanese labeled a whaling research ship.

While the Canadian-American citizen in the past has drawn support from Hollywood celebrities, his hard-line tactics have split the movement he started. Affiliates in France and Brazil have rallied behind his newly created namesake foundation while Sea Shepherd Global and 20 national affiliates focus more on watchdog patrols on the high seas, policy action and supporting law enforcement in poorer countries where illegal fishing is rampant.

A record season for krill fishing in Antarctica

Fishing in Antarctica for krill surged to a record last season, forcing an early closure of fishing activity for the first time.

Aker is the world’s largest harvester of krill, responsible for over half the world’s catch.

The remote fishery is managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an international organization composed of 27 nations and the European Union. In recent years, the organization has struggled to adopt a new krill fishing framework that would significantly boost the catch quota in exchange for environmental protections and the creation of a Texas-sized reserve along the Antarctic Peninsula, an area teeming with wildlife where the collision also took place.

Any investigation into the incident, including possible criminal prosecution, is likely to commence at the St. Kitss & Nevis-flagged Bandero’s next port of call. Under international maritime law, an overtaking vessel has an obligation to stay clear of any nearby ship it’s passing.

Bandero is named after the tequila company owned by John Paul DeJoria, an American billionaire who founded Paul Mitchell hair care products and has been a longtime supporter of Watson’s endeavors.

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This story has been updated to correct that Bandero left Australia in February, not March.

___ This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/