The 54.4 metre Sea Shepherd vessel the Allankay will berth at Queens Wharf in Wellington and there will be a public launch for the organisation's Antarctica campaign and the opportunity for the public to visit the ship. Photo: Supplied / Sea Shepherd
An ocean-going vessel from activists Sea Shepherd will call into Wellington later this week on its way to monitor the krill harvest in Antarctica.
The ice-strengthened Allankay will be the first larger Sea Shepherd vessel to visit New Zealand since the activists helped end whaling - under the guise of scientific research - in Antarctica in 2017.
New Zealand managing director Michael Lawry said whales now faced a new threat which the activists wanted to highlight as a part of Operation Antarctica Defence.
"The threat to the whales these days is no longer from Japanese whaling, but from the krill industry in Antarctica which has killed three humpbacks in the last 12 months."
Lawry said the krill harvest not only depleted food supply, but was a physical risk to whales which had become entangled in trawling nets and in some cases died.
"There's a mess of trawlers down there that are taking a primary food source for whales out of Antarctica."
The 54.5 metre Allankay would berth at Queens Wharf and once it had cleared customs there would be a public launch for its Antarctica campaign and an opportunity for the public to visit the ship.
A picture from a ship spotter shows the location of the Allankay on 31 January 2025. Photo: Supplied
The vessel, named after an Australian couple who donated A$5 million towards its purchase, had meanwhile been spotted in the South Taranaki Bight.
"We are coming into Wellington and we'll be announcing that soon. It's just that obviously someone's caught us out by spotting the ship out there."
Lawry said while waiting for clearance to sail into Wellington Harbour the Allankay, which slept 40, was monitoring marine life in the Bight as a show of support to opponents of seabed mining in the area.
"Obviously like everyone we are very concerned about seabed mining because if it does happen in Aotearoa it will be the first seabed mining in the world.
"So, you have to queue up to get into a port and while they are doing that they are looking at the area looking for wildlife because it's a wildlife hot spot. You've got pygmy blue whales and Maui's dolphins.
"It's probably got the second-highest density of marine mammals that area. It's massive, just massive."
Trans-Tasman Resources wanted to suck up millions of tonnes of seabed over 30 years in the South Taranaki Bight to extract valuable minerals and was waiting to see if it got fast-track consents approval.
It believed seabed mining could be done in an environmentally safe way and would create hundreds of jobs and generate billions of dollars in earnings over its lifespan.
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