Orcas & Marine Mammals: Its all about habitat

This is great news for all of us.
Bush Administration Designates Three New Marine National Monuments in the Pacific Ocean
Pew applauds historic action of the Bush administration

On Tuesday January 6, 2009, President Bush designated three new marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean that total an area of more than 195,561 square miles in size - larger than the states of Oregon and Washington combined. When added with the already established Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, President Bush will have designated monuments protecting 335,358 square miles of ocean and thus protected more of the world's marine environment than any other person in history. These new marine monuments will be larger than the entire U.S. National Park system, and more than double the area of U.S. ocean now protected.

More information on the three designated areas

Watch a video of President Bush announcing the designation of three new marine monuments

Read President Bush's Proclamation establishing the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument

The Mariana Trench and Islands – discovered by Ferdinand Magellan and located in the far western Pacific this U.S. position is the site of the Mariana Trench, at 36,000 feet, the deepest canyon on the globe. If Mt. Everest were dropped into the Trench, there would still be more than a mile of water above it.

More than 95,000 sq. miles in area, this monument protects some of the most diverse and remarkable underwater features on the globe. Features of the Mariana region include a boiling pool of liquid sulfur (the first pool was discovered on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons), liquid carbon dioxide that bubbles up through fractured lava, and dense beds of chemosynthetic life covering submarine crater walls. The area represents the only place on Earth with huge, active mud volcanoes, one more than 31 miles across. These unusual features are believed to harbor some of the oldest known life on the DNA tree.

Highly acidic hydrothermal vents in the area and along the Trench provide a unique natural laboratory for the study of ocean acidification and its effects on coral reefs and shallow water sea life. The only marine mammal survey undertaken in the area found 19 species including several rare species of beaked whales. On land there is the endangered Micronesian megapode (the only bird known to use volcanic heat to incubate its eggs), threatened fruit bats, and more than a dozen species of migratory seabirds with a breeding population over 200,000 and giant coconut crabs (the largest land-living arthropod in the world).

The Central Pacific Islands – Uninhabited, remote and spectacular, these seven islands (Wake Island, Johnston Atoll, Baker Island, Howland Island, Kingman Reef, Jarvis Island, Palmyra Atoll) harbor some of the most pristine coral reefs in the world, 14 million seabirds who use the area for feeding, migration and breeding and the highest densities of sharks and other large predator fish in the world. They provide safe haven for five species of sea turtles, humpback whales and other marine mammals.

Rose Atoll in American Samoa – Said to be the world’s smallest coral atoll, and one of the most remote, this rarely visit site harbors many species of sea life depleted and rare elsewhere.

Click here for photos: http://www.globaloceanlegacy.org/newsroom/mediaphotos.html#cnmimediaphotos