If you’ve recently enjoyed a seafood dinner in New York City you may have experienced the pitch to officially designate the Hudson Canyon as a National Marine Sanctuary. In fact, a handful of Big Apple seafood mongers, and at least one in New Jersey that I’m aware of, are actually wrapping the fish they sell in a petition designed to stir up sanctuary support from customers.
According to Fast Company, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) wants the Hudson Canyon designated as a National Marine Sanctuary. As per the article, the fish wrapping concept is the work of a big Manhattan ad agency working for WCS, a nonprofit organization which also manages the Bronx Zoo and the Coney Island Aquarium; appropriately enough as the WCS seems intent on turning the Hudson Canyon into a petting zoo!
NOAA Fisheries is developing a draft aimed at soliciting comments from the public before moving ahead with any sanctuary designation. There’s a process being followed, but the folks who keep animals locked in cages are apparently hoping to leapfrog the public process by influencing urbanites to go all in on turning the Hudson Canyon into a big offshore aquarium. At last check, over 25,000 people had signed the petition without ever having reviewed the forthcoming draft.
I’ve written about this topic before, back in in 2017 when the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council voted 15-4 in opposition to the pitch to designate the Hudson Canyon as a restricted area of the ocean, and then again in 2022 when WCS made yet another attempt to turn the Hudson Canyon into a sanctuary. That 2022 editorial called Hudson Canyon Zoo explained how environmental demigods can’t always be trusted.
In 2016, NOAA Fisheries and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council established the Frank R. Lautenberg Deep Sea Coral Protection Area to protect deep sea corals from the impacts of bottom-tending fishing gear. This comprehensive deep sea coral protection boasts many of the fishing gear restrictions that environmental groups claim are currently needed through a Hudson sanctuary designation. “I was given assurances that if the deep water corals were protected by NOAA in an agreement with the Mid-Atlantic Council things like the monument designation would be off the table,” said John Nappo of Trophy Tackle out on Long Island at the time.
Of course, none of this sanctuary stuff ever came off the table, as the WCS pressed on with their efforts, leading Nappo to add “I feel betrayed to be honest.” And once again, the big city environmental warriors are pushing the envelope of truth. Environment America calls the Hudson Canyon a national wonder where “centuries-old deep sea coral cling to its canyon walls, providing shelter for fish and other bottom-dwelling sea life.” The fact is, deep sea coral protections are already in place, and it was fishermen who were part of the process; a public process I might add.
The same website explains how a marine sanctuary designation would lead to “more public education efforts to raise awareness of the history of the area including the indigenous groups with a long connection to Hudson Canyon.” At risk of sounding politically incorrect, which “indigenous groups” are we talking about? From my own public education, I never learned of the Lenape, Shinnecock or Montaukett tribes fishing the Hudson Canyon!
Again, there’s a process here, and until NOAA Fisheries releases their final designation with proposed boundaries, regulations and full scope of management authority all spelled out, calling upon the public to sign a Hudson Canyon sanctuary petition isn’t worth the fish wrapper it’s written on.
Once again, the fear mongers at the Wildlife Conservation Society are pushing to enact something that’s still yet to be defined, and they’ve made fish mongers complicit in yet another one of their takeover attempts of a public process. My god, don’t you folks have some caged elephants to feed?
