July 8, 2016 โ West Coast fishers, including those that supply Los Angeles and Long Beach with local seafood, are incensed at a โsecretโ proposal from environmentalists asking President Barack Obama to create new national monuments in the Pacific Ocean.
Dozens of California fishing businesses and their representatives signed a letter this week asking Obama to ignore suggestions to block fishing in open-ocean areas rich with sea life by designating them as offshore marine monuments.
Environmental groups made the proposal in a โsecret effortโ to lobby the president to declare that many Pacific Ocean seamounts, ridges and banks are national landmarks, according to the letter.
The five-page environmental proposal, โThe Case for Protecting Californiaโs Seamounts, Ridges and Banks,โ argues that these parts of the ocean should be preserved for scientific research. Seamounts and ridges are craggy underwater mountains, and banks are shallow areas near deep ocean drop-offs.
โThese special places are home to thousand-year-old corals thriving against all odds in the dark, cold depths,โ the proposal states. โAnd they attract a remarkable variety of migratory predators such as sharks, tuna, billfishes, seabirds, and endangered sea turtles, which congregate to fuel up on the food produced by nutrient-rich upwelling currents.โ