Squid game on the high seas

SEOUL – A squid game is afoot. Not on Netflix or in the playgrounds but in the high seas. And much more is at stake. Unlike the squid game played by children in Korea – made internationally famous by the Netflix series of the same name – the future of a staple seafood, human rights and environmental issues are at stake.

While squid is a staple seafood in South Korea with myriad recipes and forms, the country is relying more and more on squid caught far from its shores – and from its regulations.

A complex crisis

With temperatures in traditional squid fishing grounds changing, the mollusc is becoming rarer in South Korean waters, pushing the country to rely increasingly on catches from distant waters.

According to data from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, South Korea’s squid catch in domestic waters dropped by 45.3 per cent from 2020 to 2025, while its squid catch from the high seas rose 36.9 per cent during the same period.

With the changes, which have been taking place for some time, squid caught in distant waters now far outpaces that from coastal waters.

From 2020 to 2024, an average of 38,278 tonnes of squid were hauled from coastal waters, while the figure for squid from the open seas came to 50,641 tonnes, up nearly 60 per cent from the previous four-year period.

Squid is being driven out of South Korean waters by rising ocean temperatures, while other structural changes in the domestic fishing industry are driving boats to the high seas, experts say.

“Squid seem to have migrated northward because the water temperature is rising, and some Chinese squid fishing vessels are coming in (to approach the border with South Korean waters),” Kim In-hyeon, a professor at Korea University specialising in maritime law, told The Korea Herald.

The sea surface temperature in South Korea’s east sea surged 2.04 deg C from 1968 to 2025, nearly triple the world’s average increase over the cited period, according to the National Institute of Fisheries Science.

That has raised the need for South Korea to rely on squid fishing on the open seas to meet demand.

“Climate change and rising coastal water temperatures are driving cold-water species, including squid and pollock, away from Korean waters, and their role in the expansion of South Korea’s distant-water squid fleet cannot be ignored,” Dominic Thomson, director of squid fisheries at the Britain-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), told The Korea Herald.

According to an estimate by the Food and Agriculture Organization, a specialised agency of the United Nations, South Korea ranked fifth in the world in terms of squid catch volume in the high seas as at 2023, after China, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

Also, 99.8 per cent of this squid catch comprises Argentine shortfin squid from the high seas of the South-west Atlantic.

Squid caught in distant water vessels are often seasoned, fried or stir-fried for restaurant side dishes or processed foods in the domestic consumer market, Jang said, which “contributes to price stability of squid in the domestic market to some extent”.

“The two types of squid are targeting different markets,” he said, adding that domestically caught squid was more suitable for recipes highlighting natural flavour, such as squid sashimi.

But the growing costs that squid fishers have had to bear due to ageing of vessels and high fuel prices, along with staff shortages, have added to pressure on the local industry, said Jang Young-soo, professor of marine business and economics at Pukyong National University.

He claimed now might be the right time for the government to come up with stronger support measures, such as higher fuel price relief and higher incentives in the state-led fishing vessel buy-back programme.

“It is a complex crisis that goes beyond a simple decrease in catch volume,” Jang, who formerly served as the president of Pukyong National University, told The Korea Herald.

Growing calls for oversight

The EJF has pointed out that unregulated fishing activities of South Korean vessels have been rampant in the South-west Atlantic. Its Global Squid Report 2026 lists problems including overfishing, weak supply chain traceability mechanisms and poor working conditions for fishing crews.

Thomson said South Korea could lead the way in improving governance in distant-water fisheries and in ensuring the sustainability of the ecosystem of the high seas.

“Simple measures like limits on trip length make a real difference,” Thomson said, adding that Korean vessels were spending an average of six months on a single trip to the high seas, which is “still a considerable amount of time”, although it is half the figure for Chinese boats.

“They improve officials’ access to vessels through inspections in port, they let crew contact families, and they give crew a chance to raise the alarm if they are being abused.”

The South-west Atlantic is also not covered by the Regional Fisheries Management Organization’s (RFMO) regulations on destructive fishing, or South Korean law on catch limits and at-sea trans-shipment.

“There are no legal limits on trip length or catch, and no rules against other destructive fishing practices, such as shark finning or the harming of sea birds. These regulations work well where (an RFMO regulation) is in place, but the South-west Atlantic squid fishery does not have one,” EJF’s Thomson said.

According to Jang, the lack of RFMO framework in the South-west Atlantic is associated with a dispute over the Falkland Islands, British territory 500km off the southern coast of South America that Argentina claims it should have sovereignty over.

Once there is a sign of RFMO creating a framework there like other high seas that RFMO regulates, South Korea “must actively participate in the process of establishing a new regional fisheries oversight at the beginning to secure its fishing quota in advance”, Jang said.

“At the same time, the government must take the lead in pioneering a stable fishing environment for distant-water fisheries through active diplomacy, such as bilateral fishing agreements with South American coastal nations.”

These could be in addition to a wider application of electronic monitoring for its fishing vessels and mechanisms to boost transparency in its catch disclosure, ways that South Korea could establish its international standing as a responsible fishing country, Jang added. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK