September 16, 2016 — WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama created the Atlantic Ocean’s first marine monument Thursday, protecting an expanse of underwater volcanoes and canyons, along with the creatures that live among them, off the coast of New England.
“If we’re going to leave our children with oceans like the ones that were left to us then we’re going to have to act. And we’re going to have to act boldly,” Obama said during the Our Ocean conservation conference in Washington, D.C.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is an area roughly the size of Connecticut and falls 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass.
There, the steep slopes of the canyons and seamounts meet currents that push nutrient filled water from the depths of the ocean to the surface. Those nutrients mix with sunlight to spur the growth of phytoplankton and zooplankton. The microscopic life forms the basis of the food chain, drawing in schools of fish and the animals that feed on them — whales, sharks, tunas, porpoises, dolphins, sea turtles and seabirds.