Komandorski Islands - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Commander Islands or Komandorski Islands are a group of treeless Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

s located 175 kilometres (108.7 mi) east of the Kamchatka Peninsula

Kamchatka Peninsula

The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...

in the Russian Far East

Russian Far East

Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...

, in the Bering Sea

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....

. The islands consist of Bering Island

Bering Island

Bering Island is located off the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Bering Sea. At long by wide, it is the largest of the Commander Islands with the area of ....

(95 kilometres (59 mi) by 15 kilometres (9.3 mi)), Medny Island

Medny Island

Medny Island , is the second largest island in the Komandorski Islands east of Russia...

(55 kilometres (34.2 mi) by 5 kilometres (3.1 mi)), and fifteen smaller ones (islets and rocks), the largest of which are Kamen Toporkov (Puffin Rock, 15 hectares (37.1 acre)) (sometimes referred to as Ostrov Toporkov) and Kamen Ariy Island, which are between 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) and 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) west of the only settlement, Nikolskoye. Administratively

Administrative divisions of Kamchatka Krai

Kamchatka Krai was formed on July 1, 2007 as a result of the merger of Kamchatka Oblast with Koryak Autonomous Okrug.*Koryak Okrug**Districts:***Karaginsky ****Urban-type settlements under the district's jurisdiction:...

, they compose Aleutsky District

Aleutsky District

Aleutsky District is an administrative and municipal district of Kamchatka Krai, Russia; one of the eleven in the krai. Its administrative center is the rural locality of Nikolskoye. District's population: All of the district population resides in Nikolskoye....

of Kamchatka Krai.

Geography

The Commander Islands are the westernmost extension of the Aleutian Islands, though they are separated from the rest of the chain by 207 miles (333.1 km). The relief is somewhat diverse, encompassing folded-block mountains, volcanic plateau

Volcanic plateau

A volcanic plateau is a plateau produced by volcanic activity. There are two main types: lava plateaus and pyroclastic plateaus.-Lava plateau:...

s, terraced plains, and low mountains. The geologic origins are long-extinct volcano

Volcano

2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...

es on the edge of the Pacific

Pacific Plate

The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At 103 million square kilometres, it is the largest tectonic plate....

and North American Plate

North American Plate

The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland, Cuba, Bahamas, and parts of Siberia, Japan and Iceland. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia. The plate includes both continental and oceanic crust...

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

Various capes surround the two main islands:

Mys Yushino
Mys Severo-Zapadnyy
Mys Vkhodnoy Rif
Mys Severo-Vostochnyy
Mys Orekhovsky
Mys Ostrovrroy
Mys Buyan
Mys Komandor
Mys Peregrebnoy
Mys Montai
Mys Sulkovskogo
Mys Perschanyy
Mys Zhirovoy
Mys Yuzhnyy

There are various small bodies of waters and streams within Bering Island and Ari:

Ozero Sarannoe - home to sockeye salmon spawning grounds
Ozero Lisinskoe (Lake Lisinskoe and river) - fish
Tundra Lake
nameless lake near Lisennova
Gavanskaya River
Gladkovskaya Lagoon on Medniy Island

The climate is relatively mild and maritime, with frequent precipitation (220–240 days/year). The cool summers are notoriously foggy.

Population

The only permanently inhabited locality is the village of Nikolskoye on the northwest end of Bering Island, with an estimated population of 613 as of 2009. The population consists almost entirely of Russians and Aleuts. The majority of the islands' area, as well as much of the adjacent marine habitat (14088 square miles (36,488 km²)), is taken up by the Komandorsky Zapovednik

Komandorsky Zapovednik

Komandorsky Nature Reserve is a zapovednik located on the Commander Islands, Kamchatka Krai, Russia.The total area of the preserve is 3,648,679 ha of which 2,177,398 ha are marine buffer zone. The land territory includes most of Bering Island, all of Medny Island, as well as thirteen...

, a natural preserve. The economy is based primarily on fishing, mushroom

Mushroom

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...

gathering, the administration of the zapovednik, ecotourism

Ecotourism

Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...

, and government services.

The village has a school, a satellite tracking station and a dirt airstrip south of the village.

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

Severnoye
Podutesnaya
Gladkovskeya
Lisennova
Peschanka
Preobrajenskoe Settlement at Peschanaya Bay on Medniy Island - abandoned
Glinka

Natural history

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. Notably, significant numbers of northern fur seal

Northern Fur Seal

The Northern fur seal is an eared seal found along the north Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk. It is the largest member of the fur seal subfamily and the only species in the genus Callorhinus.-Physical description:Northern fur seals have extreme sexual dimorphism, with males...

s (some 200,000 individuals) and Steller sea lions (approximately 5,000 individuals) summer there, both on reproductive rookeries and non-reproductive haul-outs. Sea otter

Sea Otter

The sea otter is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between 14 and 45 kg , making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smallest marine mammals...

s, common seals, and larga seals

Spotted Seal

The spotted seal , also known as the larga or largha seal, is a member of the family Phocidae, and is considered a "true seal". It inhabits ice floes and waters of the north Pacific Ocean and adjacent seas...

are likewise abundant. Indeed, the sea otter

Sea Otter

population is stable and possibly increasing, even as their population is falling precipitously 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 these are: sperm whale

Sperm Whale

The sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus, is a marine mammal species, order Cetacea, a toothed whale having the largest brain of any animal. The name comes from the milky-white waxy substance, spermaceti, found in the animal's head. The sperm whale is the only living member of genus Physeter...

s, orca

Orca

The killer whale , commonly referred to as the orca, and less commonly as the blackfish, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. Killer whales are found in all oceans, from the frigid Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas...

s, several species of beaked whale

Beaked whale

Beaked whales are 21 species of toothed whales, members of the family Ziphiidae, are notable for their elongated beaks. Beaked whales are one of the world's most extreme divers. They can dive for long periods—20 to 30 minutes is common, and 85 minute dives have been recorded—and to...

s and porpoise

Porpoise

Porpoises are small cetaceans of the family Phocoenidae; they are related to whales and dolphins. They are distinct from dolphins, although the word "porpoise" has been used to refer to any small dolphin, especially by sailors and fishermen...

s, humpbacks

Humpback Whale

The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from and weigh approximately . The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with unusually long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is an acrobatic animal, often breaching and slapping the...

, and right whale

Right whale

Right whales are three species of large baleen whales consisting of two genera in the family Balaenidae of order Cetacea. Their bodies are very dark gray or black and rotund....

s.

The much less diverse terrestrial fauna includes two distinct, endemic subspecies of arctic fox

Arctic fox

The arctic fox , also known as the white fox, polar fox or snow fox, is a small fox native to Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and is common throughout the Arctic tundra biome. The Greek word alopex, means a fox and Vulpes is the Latin version...

, (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

Reindeer

The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...

, American mink

American Mink

The American mink is a semi-aquatic species of Mustelid native to North America, though human intervention has expanded its range to many parts of Europe and South America. Because of this, it is classed as Least Concern by the IUCN. Since the extinction of the sea mink, the American mink is the...

, and rat

Rat

Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...

s 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 Northern Fulmar

Northern Fulmar

The Northern Fulmar, Fulmarus glacialis, Fulmar, or Arctic Fulmar is a highly abundant sea bird found primarily in subarctic regions of the north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans. Fulmars come in one of two color morphs: a light one which is almost entirely white, and a dark one which is...

, Common

Common Guillemot

The Common Murre or Common Guillemot is a large auk. It is also known as the Thin-billed Murre in North America. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring in low-Arctic and boreal waters in the North-Atlantic and North Pacific...

, Brunnich's

Brünnich's Guillemot

The Thick-billed Murre or Brünnich's Guillemot is a bird in the auk family . This bird is named after the Danish zoologist Morten Thrane Brünnich...

and Pigeon Guillemot

Pigeon Guillemot

The Pigeon Guillemot is a medium-sized alcid endemic to the Pacific. They closely resemble the other members of the genus Cepphus, particularly the Black Guillemot, which is slightly smaller....

s, Horned

Horned Puffin

The Horned Puffin is an auk, similar in appearance to the Atlantic Puffin; this bird's bill is yellow at the base and red at the tip. It is a pelagic seabird that feeds primarily by diving for fish. It nests in colonies, often with other auks.The yellow bill plate grows before the breeding...

and Tufted Puffin

Tufted Puffin

The Tufted Puffin also known as Crested Puffin, is a relatively abundant medium-sized pelagic seabird in the auk family found throughout the North Pacific Ocean....

s, cormorants, gulls, and kittiwakes including the extremely local Red-legged Kittiwake

Red-legged Kittiwake

The Red-legged Kittiwake is a seabird species in the gull family Laridae. It breeds in the Pribilof, Bogoslof and Buldir islands of the USA, and the Commander Islands, Russia. Adults are long, with an wingspan and a body mass of ....

which nests in only a few other colonies in the world. Waterfowl

Waterfowl

Waterfowl are certain wildfowl of the order Anseriformes, especially members of the family Anatidae, which includes ducks, geese, and swans....

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 Steller's Eider

Steller's Eider

The Steller's Eider is a medium-large sea duck that breeds along the Arctic coasts of eastern Siberia and Alaska. The lined nest is built on tundra close to the sea, and 6-10 eggs are laid....

, Pacific Golden Plover

Pacific Golden Plover

The Pacific Golden Plover is a medium-sized plover.The 23–26 cm long breeding adult is spotted gold and black on the crown, back and wings. Its face and neck are black with a white border and it has a black breast and a dark rump. The legs are black...

, and Aleutian Tern

Aleutian Tern

The Aleutian Tern is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae....

. Raptors of note include the rare Steller's Sea Eagle

Steller's Sea Eagle

The Steller's Sea Eagle, Haliaeetus pelagicus, is a large bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. It lives in coastal northeastern Asia and mainly preys on fish. It is, on average, the heaviest eagle in the world, at about , but often lags behind the Harpy Eagle and Philippine Eagle in other...

and Gyrfalcon

Gyrfalcon

The Gyrfalcon — Falco rusticolus — is the largest of the falcon species. The Gyrfalcon breeds on Arctic coasts and the islands of North America, Europe, and Asia. It is mainly resident there also, but some Gyrfalcons disperse more widely after the breeding season, or in winter.Individual vagrancy...

. 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

Arctic char

Arctic char or Arctic charr is both a freshwater and saltwater fish in the Salmonidae family, native to Arctic, sub-Arctic and alpine lakes and coastal waters. No other freshwater fish is found as far north. It is the only species of fish in Lake Hazen, on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic...

, Dolly Varden

Dolly Varden

Dolly Varden may refer to:* Dolly Varden , a character in the novel Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens. The original usage.* Dolly Vardens , a group of Black women baseball players that comprised the first professional baseball team* Dolly Varden , a musical group from Chicago, Illinois* Dolly Varden...

, black spotted trout, chinook

Chinook salmon

The Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, is the largest species in the pacific salmon family. Other commonly used names for the species include King salmon, Quinnat salmon, Spring salmon and Tyee salmon...

, sockeye

Sockeye salmon

Sockeye salmon , also called red salmon or blueback salmon in the USA, is an anadromous species of salmon found in the Northern Pacific Ocean and rivers discharging into it...

, coho and pink salmon

Pink salmon

Pink salmon or humpback salmon, Oncorhynchus gorbuscha, is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It is the smallest and most abundant of the Pacific salmon.- Appearance :...

.

Bering Island was the only known habitat of Steller's sea cow

Steller's Sea Cow

Steller's sea cow was a large herbivorous marine mammal. In historical times, it was the largest member of the order Sirenia, which includes its closest living relative, the dugong , and the manatees...

s, an immense (over 4000 kg) sirenian similar to the manatee

Manatee

Manatees are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows...

. The sea cow was hunted to extinction

Extinction

In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...

within 27 years of its discovery in 1741. The Spectacled Cormorant

Spectacled Cormorant

The Spectacled Cormorant or Pallas's Cormorant is an extinct marine bird of the cormorant family of seabirds that inhabited Bering Island and possibly other places in the Komandorski Islands and the nearby coast of Kamchatka...

, a large essentially flightless bird in the cormorant family, was similarly driven to extinction by around 1850.

There is no true forest on the Commander Islands. The vegetation is dominated by lichens, mosses and different associations of marshy plants with low grass and dwarf trees. Very tall umbellifers are also common. There are no amphibians or reptiles.

History

The Commander Islands received their name after Commander Vitus Bering

Vitus Bering

Vitus Jonassen Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering (also, less correNavy]], a captain-komandor known among the Russian sailors as Ivan Ivanovich. He is noted for being the first European to discover Alaska and its Aleutian Islands...

, who died there in 1741 after his ship St. Peter wrecked on the otherwise uninhabited Bering Island on his return voyage from Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

. Bering perished on the island along with much of the crew. His grave is marked in Bering island 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

Georg Wilhelm Steller

Georg Wilhelm Steller was a German botanist, zoologist, physician and explorer, who worked in Russia and is considered the discoverer of Alaska and a pioneer of Alaskan natural history.-Biography:...

, who cured many of the men from scurvy

Scurvy

Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...

by compelling them to eat seaweed. Eventually, a smaller boat was rebuilt 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 "Promyshlenniky" which drove the Russian expansion into Alaska. Steller's sea cow, whose habitat was apparently restricted to the kelp-beds around Bering Island, was exterminated by 1768.
Aleut (Unangan) people were transferred to the Commander Islands early in 1825 by the Russian-American Company

Russian-American Company

The Russian-American Company was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the so-called Shelekhov-Golikov Company of Grigory Shelekhov and Ivan Larionovich Golikov The Russian-American Company (officially: Under His Imperial Majesty's Highest Protection (patronage)...

from the Aleutians for the seal trade

Seal hunting

Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. The hunt is currently practiced in five countries: Canada, where most of the world's seal hunting takes place, Namibia, the Danish region of Greenland, Norway and Russia...

. Most of the Aleuts inhabiting Bering Island came from Atka Island

Atka Island

Atka Island is the largest island in the Andreanof Islands of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. The island is east of Adak Island. It is long and wide with a land area of , making it the 22nd largest island in the United States. The northeast of Atka Island contains the Korovin volcano which...

and those who lived on Medny Island came from Attu Island

Attu Island

Attu is the westernmost and largest island in the Near Islands group of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, making it the westernmost point of land relative to Alaska and the United States. It was the site of the only World War II land battle fought on the incorporated territory of the United States ,...

, now both American possessions. A mixed language

Mixed language

A mixed language is a language that arises through the fusion of two source languages, normally in situations of thorough bilingualism, so that it is not possible to classify the resulting language as belonging to either of the language families that were its source...

called Mednyj Aleut

Mednyj Aleut

Mednyj Aleut is a nearly extinct mixed language spoken on Bering Island. It is characterized by Aleut nouns and Russian verbs, each with the full inflectional complexity of the source languages...

, with Aleut roots but Russian verb inflection, developed among the inhabitants. Today the population of the islands is about 2/3 Russian and 1/3 Aleut.

The 1943 Battle of the Komandorski Islands

Battle of the Komandorski Islands

The Battle of the Komandorski Islands was one of the most unusual engagements of World War II. It was a naval battle which took place on 27 March 1943 in the North Pacific area of the Pacific Ocean, near the Soviet Komandorski Islands.-Background:...

took place in the open sea about 160 kilometres (99.4 mi) south of the islands.

Territorial disputes

Two smaller groups of rocks near Medny Island, Sea Lion Rock

Sea Lion Rock

Sea Lion Rock is a rock of the Commander Islands near the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia.Some private individuals in the United States claim that this island, along with Medny Island and Sea Otter Rocks, are disputed territory based on the Alaskan Purchase . However, the U.S. government has never...

and Sea Otter Rocks

Sea Otter Rocks

Sea Otter Rocks are rocks of the Commander Islands in the Bering Sea.Some private individuals in the U.S. regard the rocks, along with Medny Island and Sea Lion Rock, as disputed territory based on the text of the Alaska Purchase of 1867...

, are regarded by some U.S. individuals as contested territory. However, the U.S. government makes no claim to the islands, and recognizes them as Russian territory .

External links