A ship operated by the Captain Paul Watson Foundation collided with a Norwegian krill trawler off Antarctica in an incident that the trawler’s owner said threatened crew safety and raised fears of environmental damage in a fragile marine area, according to The Associated Press. The clash happened Tuesday, when the M/V Bandero, operated by the foundation, approached the stern of the Antarctic Sea vessel and hit its port side at a slight angle, as shown in a two-minute video provided to AP by Aker QRILL Co. of Norway.
Aker said Wednesday that the multinational crew aboard the krill trawler was shaken but unharmed, and the company said it would pursue all available legal action. The company also alerted naval authorities in Argentina and Chile, and one of those countries is deploying a vessel to the area near the Antarctic peninsula where the collision took place, according to AP’s report.
Aker BioMarine CEO Matts Johansen described the incident in terms of intent and risk. Johansen said in an interview that the ramming was the first such collision in more than a decade in the Southern Ocean and “resembled a “terrorist attack.”” He told AP that the act was “intended to cause harm,” and he said it was “based on ideological or political views,” adding that it was “not the way the Antarctica was intended to be managed.”
Paul Watson, whose foundation operates the Bandero, disputed the trawler owner’s characterization. From his river boat in Paris, where he coordinates the foundation’s work, Watson said he has practiced “aggressive nonviolence” for a half century on the high seas and described the contact as a “gentle nudge.” He said the action was meant to ensure that “nobody is hurt” and that “all we did was rub a little paint off of their boat,” while also saying Aker’s conduct is “incredibly destructive” toward the environment.
The Bandero’s collision followed earlier confrontation activity described by the foundation and Aker. AP reported that the crew, led by French activist Lamya Essemlali, departed Australia in February as part of what the Watson foundation called Operation Krill Wars. Before the Tuesday incident, the Bandero was involved in a tense, five-hour standoff in which its crew launched giant metal net shredding devices intended to disrupt fishing by two Aker vessels, AP said.
In addition to arguing that the contact was dangerous, Aker described what it says the Bandero nearly struck. The company said the Bandero came within inches—centimeters—of hitting a diesel tank on the trawler, which it said would have risked a habitat “teeming with multiple whale species, seals and seabirds,” all feeding on the krill population in the environmentally sensitive Southern Ocean.
Watson’s history in the campaign against whaling has also shaped how the confrontation has been perceived. AP said Watson founded the Sea Shepherd conservation movement in the 1970s and, for decades, built a reputation for ramming vessels and using aggressive tactics in confrontations on the high seas that repeatedly led to jail time. It said he was last detained in Greenland for five months in 2024 on a Japanese warrant later rejected by Denmark, after 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 Japan labeled a whaling research ship.
The clash also underscores a broader fight over the future of Antarctic krill, which AP described as both a key prey item for whales and an important environmental buffer to global warming. AP said fishing in Antarctica for krill surged to a record last season, forcing an early closure of fishing for the first time, and it said Aker is the world’s largest harvester of krill and responsible for more than half of the world’s catch.
AP said the remote fishery is managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an international organization of 27 nations and the European Union. The report said the commission has struggled in recent years to adopt a new krill fishing framework that would increase catch quotas while pairing the change with environmental protections and the creation of a reserve along the Antarctic Peninsula, an area teeming with wildlife including where the collision took place.
Any investigation into the incident, including possible criminal prosecution, is likely to begin at the next port of call for the Bandero, which AP said is flagged under St. Kitts and Nevis. Under international maritime law, the report said, an overtaking vessel has an obligation to stay clear of any nearby ship it’s passing.
The Bandero’s name is also tied to a broader network of supporters. AP reported that the ship 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 long-time supporter of Watson’s work.
This story has been updated to correct that Bandero left Australia in February, not March.