Commander Islands

Coordinates: 55°00′N 166°24′E / 55.00°N 166.40°E / 55.00; 166.40
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

55°00′N 166°24′E / 55.00°N 166.40°E / 55.00; 166.40

Commander Islands
Командо́рские острова́ (
Aleuts
Area
• Total
1,846 km2 (713 sq mi)
Population
• 2009 estimate
613

The Commander Islands, Komandorski Islands, or Komandorskie Islands (

islets and rocks. The largest of the latter are Tufted Puffin Rock (Kamen Toporkov or Ostrov Toporkov), 15 ha (37 acres), and Kamen Ariy, which are between 3 km (1.9 mi) and 13 km (8.1 mi) west of the only settlement, Nikolskoye. Administratively, the Commanders compose the Aleutsky District of the Kamchatka Krai in Russia
.

In 2005 the Comandorsky State Nature Reserve was nominated for the List of World Heritage Sites in Russia of UNESCO.[1]

Geography

Detailed map including the Commander Islands

The Commander Islands archipelago consists of 15 islands and is a part of a submarine volcanic ridge extending from

Pacific and North American Plates
.

The highest point is Steller's Peak on Bering Island at 755 m (2,477 ft).[1] The highest point on Medny Island is Stenjeger's Peak at 647 m (2,123 ft).

The archipelago lies at similar latitudes to

Alaskan Panhandle
.

Climate

The climate is relatively mild for its latitude, and maritime, with 220–240 days of precipitation per year. The cool summers are notoriously foggy. The Köppen climate classification would be classed as Dfc bordering on Cfc and Dfb.

Population

The village of Nikolskoye on Bering Island

The only permanently inhabited locality is the village of

mushroom gathering, the administration of the zapovednik (i.e. strictly protected wilderness), ecotourism
and government services.

The village has a school, a satellite tracking station and a dirt airstrip to its south.

The other settlements on the two islands are small villages or scattering of houses:

Natural history

Detail from an early map by Bering expedition member S. Khitrov of eastern Kamchatka, including the Commander Islands, with drawings of Steller's sea cow, the northern fur seal and the Steller sea lion.
Medny Island

There is no true forest on the Commander Islands. The vegetation is dominated by

umbellifers
are also common.

Mammals

Due to the high productivity of the Bering Sea shelf and the Pacific slope and their remoteness from human influence, the Commander Islands are marked by a great abundance of marine animal life and a relative paucity of terrestrial organisms.

common seals and larga seals are likewise abundant. Indeed, the sea otter population is stable and possibly increasing, even as their population is falling precipitously in the rest of the Aleutian islands.[4]

The neighboring waters provide important feeding, wintering and migrating habitat for many whale species, many of which are threatened or endangered. Among these are: sperm whales, orcas, several species of Minke whales,[5] beaked whales, and porpoises, humpbacks and endangered species such as the North Pacific right whales[3][6] and fin whales.[7]

Bering Island was the only known habitat of

sirenian related to the dugong. The sea cow was hunted to extinction within 27 years of its discovery in 1741.[8]

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.[3]

Birds

Over a million seabirds gather to nest on numerous large colonies along almost all the coastal cliffs. The most common are

waterbirds and seabirds.[12]

Bering Island

The fish fauna in the mountainous, fast running streams is composed primarily of migratory

coho and pink salmon
.

There are no

reptiles on the Commander Islands.[3]

History

Aleut hunters from Bering Island
(c. 1884–1886)

The Commander Islands received their name from Commander

his return voyage from Alaska in 1741. Bering died on the island along with much of the crew. His grave is marked by a modest monument. About half of the crew did manage to survive the winter, thanks in part to the abundance of wildlife (notably the newly discovered Steller's sea cow) and the efforts of naturalist and physician Georg Wilhelm Steller, who cured many of the men of scurvy by compelling them to eat seaweed.[13] Eventually, a smaller boat was built from the remains of the St. Peter and the survivors found their way back to Kamchatka, heavily laden with valuable sea otter pelts. The discovery of the sea otters sparked the great rush of fur-seeking "promyshlenniki
" which drove the Russian expansion into Alaska.

1966 Soviet postage stamp depicting Bering's second voyage and the discovery of the Commander Islands

Mednyj Aleut
, with Aleut roots but Russian verb inflection, developed among the inhabitants. Today the population of the islands is about ⅔ Russian and ⅓ Aleut.

The 1943 Battle of the Komandorski Islands took place in the open sea about 160 km (100 mi) south of the islands.[14]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c The Commander Islands (Comandorsky State Nature Reserve)
  2. PMID 12082644
    .
  3. ^
    JSTOR 1374226
    .
  4. ISSN 1545-1542
    .
  5. ^ "MPAtlas » Commander Islands". www.mpatlas.org. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  6. ^ "Командорский - Японский гладкий кит Eubalaena japonica Lacepede, 1818" [Komandorsky - Japanese right whale Eubalaena japonica Lacepede, 1818]. komandorsky.ru. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  7. ^ "Командорский - Финвал (сельдяной кит) Balaenoptera physalus (Linnaeus, 1758)" [Commander - Fin whale (herring whale) Balaenoptera physalus (Linnaeus, 1758)]. komandorsky.ru. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  8. doi:10.1111/j.1748-7692.1995.tb00294.x
    .
  9. ^ "Commander Islands". Greenpeace Russia. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  10. JSTOR 4082233
    .
  11. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2023-1.RLTS.T22696750A226827998.en
    . Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  12. ^ "Commander Islands". BirdLife Data Zone. BirdLife International. 2021. Retrieved 7 February 2021.
  13. ISBN 0-8047-2181-5
    .
  14. ISBN 0-87021-093-9

References

  • Richard Ellis, Encyclopedia of the Sea, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.
  • Artyukhin Yu. B. Commander Islands, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, 2005.

External links
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