June 9, 2022 — A new marine sanctuary off the northeast United States is proposed by the Biden administration, part of a suite of measures for public lands announced Wednesday.
The Hudson Canyon, the largest submarine gorge off the U.S. Atlantic at up to 2.5 miles deep and 7.5 miles wide, lies about 100 miles offshore of New York Harbor and runs 350 miles through the edge of the continental shelf.
The waters are home to federally protected whales, turtles and deep sea corals, and the scene of commercial and recreational pelagic fisheries. The sanctuary proposal raised alarms among East Coast longline fishermen, who worry it could restrict their swordfish and tuna fishery.
“Hudson Canyon’s grand scale and diverse structure – steep slopes, firm outcrops, diverse sediments, flux of nutrients, and areas of upwelling – make it an ecological hotspot for a vast array of marine wildlife,” according to a synopsis issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The American Sword and Tuna Harvesters, a group of commercial pelagic fisherman, said a Hudson Canyon sanctuary designation could set a course for a similar conflict again.
“Simply put, a commercial fishing ban in the Hudson Canyon has the potential to cause the collapse of the East Coast commercial fishery,” the group said in a statement early June 9.
“This is another disappointing action from an administration that claims to be committed to science, working families, and communities. But it is unfortunately not out of character,” the group said. In June 2021 “our attempts to arrange a meeting with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to discuss the harm to our fishers from reimposition of a commercial fishing ban in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument were rebuffed.