ANTARCTICA — A ship operated by the Captain Paul Watson Foundation collided with an industrial krill trawler in Antarctic waters, prompting the vessel's Norwegian owner to call the incident an attack that endangered its crew and could have caused a disaster. The foundation said the collision was accidental and that it was committed to lawful, responsible, non-violent action in defense of marine ecosystems.

A two-minute video provided by Aker Qrill Co. shows the M/V Bandero, a Mongolia-flagged vessel, steaming toward the fishing vessel's stern and hitting its port side at a slight angle. Aker said the Bandero came within centimeters of striking a diesel tank on the Norwegian-flagged Antarctic Sea and that the collision put at risk a habitat teeming with whale species, seals and seabirds. The company's multinational crew was shaken but unharmed.

"Our crew were put at risk in some of the most remote waters on Earth, and only luck avoided potential environmental damage," said Webjørn Barstad, Chief Executive Officer of Aker. "If the steel plates had ruptured, it could have caused a spill. It was probably just luck that it didn't cause more damage." Aker said it would pursue all available legal action.

Matts Johansen, Chief Executive Officer of Aker BioMarine, said the collision caught the company off guard and resembled a "terrorist attack." The company alerted naval authorities in Argentina and Chile, and one authority is deploying a vessel to the area near the Antarctic peninsula where the collision took place.

The foundation said the crew, led by French activist Lamya Essemlali, disrupted all krill fishing during a five-hour direct intervention against two Aker-owned vessels. The foundation provided images showing the crew launching giant metal net shredding devices intended to disrupt fishing. The vessel had departed Australia in February as part of a mission the foundation called Operation Krill Wars.

Watson, the conservation activist who founded the global Sea Shepherd movement in the 1970s, was not aboard during the incident. He said the vessel only gave a gentle nudge to the trawler. "We make sure that nobody is hurt and all we did was rub a little paint off of their boat," he said.

Watson was detained in Greenland for five months in 2024 on a Japanese warrant that Denmark later rejected. Interpol removed its most-wanted designation for Watson in 2025 over a 2010 encounter in which Japan's coast guard accused him of ordering a captain to throw explosives at a whaling research ship.

Antarctic krill is a shrimplike crustacean central to the diet of whales, acts as a buffer to global warming, and is in demand for use in health supplements, fishmeal and other products. Fishing in Antarctica for krill surged to a record last season, forcing the first-ever early closure of fishing activity. The remote fishery is managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an organization of 27 nations and the European Union.

Under international maritime law, an overtaking vessel must stay clear of any nearby ship it is passing. Any investigation into the incident, including possible criminal prosecution, is likely to commence at the Bandero's next port of call.