President Obama has designated 4,913 square miles of ocean, 130 miles off Cape Cod on the southern edge of George’s Bank, as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, the nation’s first marine reserve in the Atlantic Ocean.
Lee Crockett at the Pew Charitable Trusts writes: The protected area includes three canyons and four underwater mountains, where scientists have documented hundreds of species. Brilliant cold-water corals, some the size of small trees, form the foundation of deep-sea ecosystems, providing food, spawning habitat, and shelter for fish and other marine animals. The region is also home to tunas, sharks, seabirds, dolphins, and other marine mammals, such as endangered sperm whales and rare North Atlantic right whales.