Here’s one increase in traffic that won’t have you pounding a car hood: The city’s waters have been rife with sightings of marine life all s
Thank you for sharing this! This is another one of those situations where we are just now seeing the noticeable, dramatic payoff of years and years of quiet, unnoticed environmental work.
“Experts say years of conservation efforts have resulted in some of the healthiest waters in generations, with booming fish populations, clearer ocean waves and more chances to interact with our urban aquarium.”
This quote also really got me:
“‘It never gets old, it’s always thrilling,’ said Celia Ackerman, a naturalist with American Princess Cruises who captured the images. As a child growing up in Brooklyn, Ackerman couldn’t wait to move out of the city so she could study marine animals. 'I would have never imagined I could enjoy them here right in my backyard.’”
Not only that, but they’ve recently introduced millions of baby oysters into the waters to continue the clean up process!
It’s fantastic news for the health of the Hudson River as well as the harbor.
I would die for Big
I was in… I think 6th grade when we went on a school field trip on the Hudson. Part of the trip involved briefly dredging the river and ‘helping’ the naturalists leading the trip identify the different species.
I will never forget how excited they got when they identified the small (1-2ft) sturgeon. We nad no clue what the big deal was with a big (to us) greyish fish.
It was the first time they had seen a sturgeon that far down the Hudson.
That was nearly 30 years ago.
About 15 years ago, a friend who lived near the Hudson told me they they didn’t see a point in trying to ‘save the world’ because everything was screwed already and it was only a matter of how long until the end.
Which is to say that the Hudson and nearby ocean have been healing a bit at a time for decades and often the healing is invisible to everyone but the experts.
That working to fix things matters, even when you can’t see the progress.
That this absolutely amazing milestone is the result of thousands, perhaps millions, of people working in science, in industry, in education, in civil engineering, to make hundreds or thousands of seemingly ‘little’ changes.
Our actions matter. Work for structural change. Believe in the change you can’t yet see.
I was part of the team that discovered the first evidence of blue whales returning to New York Harbor. Blue whales. The biggest animals ever to grace the planet, right there next to the city. Know what hearing those calls for the first time sounded like? It sounded like hope.
