Coral Protection Area

andynap

Senior Insider
[h=1]Creatures under the sea get safe space[/h][h=2]Waters off N.J. are part of a huge federally protected, ecologically valuable area.[/h]
By Sam Wood STAFF WRITER
image.ashx

To preserve some of the oldest living creatures on Earth, the federal government announced Wednesday that it had created an enormous protected area off the coast of New Jersey to protect deep-sea corals and other hidden ecological treasures.
At more than 40,000 square miles (the size of Virginia), the Frank R. Lautenberg Deep Sea Coral Protection Area includes about a dozen deepwater chasms, including the fabled Hudson Canyon. The area begins more than 70 miles offshore and parallels the coast from Long Island to North Carolina. Lautenberg, the U.S. senator from New Jersey who died in 2013, championed several deepwater species.
The agreement was hashed out by several stakeholders including NOAA Mid-Atlantic Fisheries, fishermen, and marine scientists.
Cold-water corals live hundreds of meters under the water. Until the fishing industry started harvesting using bottom trawling, the creatures were undisturbed for millennia. Commercial fishermen using “canyon busters,” however, have raked the world’s seafloor to harvest mackerel, monkfish, and squid. The equipment boosts fisheries production but also topples and destroys the fragile coral. What survives can take centuries, even thousands of years, to bounce back. As a result, species that depend on the coral for their habitats — spider crabs, the bizarre rhinochimera, and scores of other rarely seen animals — are also left unprotected and imperiled.
The newly protected area bans destructive equipment at depths greater than 1,450 feet and goes into effect Jan. 17, said the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which manages fisheries in federal waters. Among the prohibited devices are trawls, dredges, and traps. The prohibitions do not apply to recreational fishermen or the American lobster fishery.
The area will help fishermen as well, said Sandra Brooke, a deep-sea coral expert at Florida State University.
“It provides a refuge from fishing which may help replenish the stocks on the continental shelf,” Brooke said.
Joseph Gordon, manager of Mid-Atlantic Ocean Conservation for the Pew Charitable Trusts, called the action historic not only for creating the largest protected area in the U.S. Atlantic, but also because so many groups worked together to conserve the vulnerable species.
“Healthy habitat supports ocean ecosystems and thriving fisheries,” Gordon said, “and this success stands as a challenge and inspiration for other fishery managers around the country.”
 
Food Forum also. . "Commercial fishermen using “canyon busters,” however, have raked the world’s seafloor to harvest mackerel, monkfish, and squid. "

I must have missed your moderator appointment. :questionmark:
 
thats awesome.....spent many a COLD winter day out on the Hudson Canyon while tilefising ....but we long lined which has no negative effect on the bottom...however we saw many Russian and Bulgarian ships out there just scraping the bottom clean ( pre 200 Mile Limit )
 
We went out to the Canyon a few times but it's a bit of a schlepp from Wildwood just for a couple of fishes. Nice blues tho.
 
Top