Komandorski Islands
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Komandorski Islands or Commander Islands (Russian: Командо́рские острова́) are a group of treeless Russian islands located 175 km east of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East, in the Bering Sea. The islands consist of Bering Island (95 km by 15 km), Medny Island (55 km by 5 km), and fifteen smaller ones, the largest of which are Kamen Toporkov (Puffin Rock) and Ariy Island. Administratively, they compose Aleutsky District of Kamchatka Oblast.
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[edit] Geography
The Komandorski Islands are the westernmost extension of the Aleutian Islands, though they are separated from the rest of the chain by several hundred miles. The relief is somewhat diverse, encompassing folded-block mountains, volcanic plateaus, terraced plains, and low mountains. The geologic origins are long-extinct volcanoes on the edge of the Pacific and North American Plates. The highest point is Steller Peak on Bering Island at 755 m. The highest point on Medny Island is Stenjeger's Peak at 647 m.
The climate is relatively mild and maritime, with frequent precipitation (220–240 days/year). The cool summers are notoriously foggy.
[edit] Population
The only permanently inhabited locality is the village of Nikolskoye on the northwest end of Bering Island, with estimated population of 750 as of 2005. The population is almost entirely comprised of Russians and Aleuts. The majority of the islands' area, as well as much of the adjacent marine habitat (3,648,679 ha), is taken up by the Komandorsky Zapovednik, a natural preserve. The economy is based primarily on fishing, mushroom gathering, the administration of the zapovednik, ecotourism, and government services.
[edit] Natural history
Due to the high productivity of the Bering Sea shelf and the Pacific slope and their remoteness from human influence, the Komandorski Islands are home to a great abundance of animal life. Notably, very significant aggregations (both reproductive rookeries and non-reproductive haul-outs) of northern fur seal (some 200,000 individuals) and Steller sea lion (approximately 5,000 individuals) are found there. Sea otters, common seals, and larga seals are likewise abundant. Indeed, the sea otter population is stable and possibly increasing, even as their population is falling in the rest of the Aleutian islands.
The neighboring waters provide important feeding, wintering, and migrating habitat for many whale species, many of which are threatened or endangered. Among include: sperm whale, orca, several species of beaked whale and porpoise, humbback, and right whale.
The much less diverse terrestrial fauna includes two distinct, endemic subspecies of arctic fox, (Alopex lagopus semenovi and A. l. beringensis). Though relatively healthy now, these populations had been significantly depleted in the past due to the fur trade. Most other terrestrial species, including wild reindeer, American mink, and rats have all been introduced to the islands by man.
Over a million seabirds gather to nest on numerous large colonies along almost all the coastal cliffs. The most common are: fulmars, murres (common and thick-billled), puffins (horned and tufted), guillemots, cormorants, gulls, and kittiwakes including the etremely localised red-legged kittiwake which nests in only three other locations in the world. Waterfowl and sandpipers are also abundant along the pre-lake depressions and river valleys of Bering Island, though largely absent from Medny Island. Migratory birds of note with critical nesting or feeding habitat on the islands include such species as the endangered whooping crane, Steller's eider, Pacific golden plover, and Aleutian tern. Raptors of note include the rare Steller sea eagle and gyrfalcon. In total, over 180 bird species have been registered on the Commander Islands.
The fish fauna in the mountainous, fast running streams in composed primarily of migratory salmonids, including Arctic char, Dolly Varden, black spotted trout, chinook, sockeye, coho and pink salmon.
Bering Island was the only known habitat of Steller's sea cow, an immense (over 4,000 kg) sirenian similar to the manatee. The sea cow was hunted to extinction within forty years of its discovery in 1741. The spectacled cormorant, a large essentially flightless bird in the cormorant family, was similarly driven to extinction by around 1850.
[edit] History
The Komandorski Islands received their name after Commander Vitus Bering, who died there in 1741 after his ship St. Peter wrecked on the otherwise uninhabted Bering Island on his return voyage from Alaska. Bering himself died on the island, where his grave is marked by a modest monument. Some of the crew, however, managed to survive the winter, thanks in part to the efforts of naturalist and physician Georg Wilhelm Steller and to the abundance of wildlife, notably the newly discovered Steller's sea cow. Eventually, they managed to rebuild the St. Peter and sail back to Kamchatka. The sea otter pelts that the crewmen of Bering's expedition brought back to the mainland sparked the great rush of fur-seeking "Promyshlenniky" which drove the Russian expansion into Alaska. The Steller sea cow, whose habitat was apparently restricted to the kelp-beds around Bering Island, was extirpated by 1768.
Aleut (Unangan) people were transferred to the Komandorski Islands early in 1825 by the Russian-American Company from the Aleutians for the seal trade. Most of the Aleuts inhabiting Bering Island came from Atka Island and those who lived on Medny Island came from Attu Island, both nowadays American possessions. Today the population of the islands is about 2/3 Russian and 1/3 Aleut.
The 1943 Battle of the Komandorski Islands took place in the open sea about 160 kilometers (99.4 mi) south of the islands.
[edit] Territorial disputes
Two smaller groups of rocks near Medny Island, Sea Lion Rock (Сивучий Камень, Sivuchy Kamen) and Sea Otter Rocks (Камни Бобровые, Kamni Bobrovyye), are technically contested territory, claimed de jure by the United States and de facto by the Russian Federation.
[edit] Reference
- Richard Ellis Encyclopedia of the Sea New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001
