Stranded white krill fine feast for birds until decay sets in

A smelly white blanket around the Andersons Bay inlet  during the past two days was a banquet for seabirds but a bad smell for the area’s human population.

The blanket is made up of millions of tiny transparent shrimp-like crustaceans that died after being washed ashore and stranded.

White krill have bioluminescent organs in their bodies and twinkle like falling stars when they are found on the shore at night. But on a warm summer day, they quickly die and turn white and many of them rot before the birds can get to them, "releasing an interesting aroma", Sally Carson, director of the New Zealand Marine Studies Centre says in a new book, Collins Field Guide to the New Zealand Seashore, which she and wildlife photographer Rod Morris have just produced.

Apart from the smell, the presence of "white krill" (of the order Euphausiacea) was not as obvious as the bright red blankets of Munida gregaria, the juvenile squat lobster, which are often a spectacular sight in southern New Zealand during the summer months, when large numbers are stranded. Krill are found in all the world’s oceans and the strandings are a sign of productivity.

Both krill and squat lobsters are key members of the Southern Ocean food web, feeding on smaller zooplankton and in turn being eaten by a wide variety of fish and seabirds and baleen whales, including the blue whale, of which they are the main prey.

Krill are fished commercially in the Southern Ocean and in the waters around Japan, most of the catch being used for aquaculture and aquarium feeds, as bait in sport fishing, or in the pharmaceutical industry.

And in Japan, the Philippines and Russia, krill are also used for human consumption.