June 9, 2022 — Long ago, the retreat of ice age glaciers carved one of the largest underwater canyons in the world into the seabed about 100 miles from New York City. Now, hundreds of species live there, including sperm whales, sea turtles and deep-sea corals.
The Hudson Canyon — spanning nearly 7½ miles wide and more than two miles deep in some places — rivals the Grand Canyon in scale. The push to add it to the National Marine Sanctuary System reflects the Biden administration’s broader effort to safeguard critical habitat threatened by development and global warming by conserving 30 percent of the nation’s land and waters by 2030.
“A sanctuary near one of the most densely populated areas of the Northeast U.S. would connect diverse communities across the region to the ocean and the canyon in new and different ways,” Rick Spinrad, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said in a statement. “As someone who grew up in New York City and went on to a career in ocean science, I am excited about how this amazing underwater environment can inspire shared interest in conserving our ocean.”