St. Matthew Island

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St. Matthew Island (60°33′N 172°42′W) is an uninhabited island in the Bering Sea in Alaska, 295 km (183 miles) WNW of Nunivak Island. The island is 357.049 km² (137.857 sq mi) in land area. Its most southerly point is Cape Upright which features cliff faces which exceed 1000 feet. There is a small island to the north called Hall Island. The highest point on the island is 450 metres above sea level.

The entire island's natural scenery and wildlife is protected as it is part of the Bering Sea unit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.

The United States Coast Guard maintained a manned LORAN station on the island during the 1940s.

[edit] Reindeer

In 1944, 29 reindeer were introduced to the island by the United States Coast Guard to provide an emergency food source. The coast guard abandoned the island a few years later, leaving the reindeer. Subsequently, the reindeer population rose to about 6,000 by 1963 and then died off in the next two years to about 40 animals. A scientific study attributed the population crash to the limited food supply in interaction with climatic factors (the winter of 1963-64 was exceptionally severe in the region)^[1]. By the 1980s, the reindeer population had completely died out^[2].

[edit] Fish

There is a small lake on the island which is inhabited by chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma) and Arctic char.