Russia Fauna Bering Island northern fur seals colony stamp 1966

Description

Bering Island is located off the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Bering Sea. At 90 kilometers (56 mi) long by 24 kilometers (15 mi) wide, it is the largest and westernmost of the Commander Islands, with an area of 1,660 square kilometers (640 sq mi). Most of Bering island and several of the smaller islands in their entirety are now part of the Komandorsky Zapovednik nature preserve. Known as the "hidden Jewel of the U.S.-Russia Maritime Boundary," Bering Island is treeless, desolate and experiences severe weather, including high winds, persistent fog and earthquakes. It had no year-round human residents until roughly 1826. Now, the village of Nikolskoye is home to 800 people, roughly three hundred of them identifying as Aleuts. The island's scant population is involved mostly in fishing. Bering island has also long been famous for its seal rookeries, including
northern fur seals
, common seals and larga seals, although that population dropped to but 2 rookeries totaling 3,000 seals by 1913 (two years after the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911), particularly after the 20 year hunting lease of Hutchinson, Kohl and Company of San Francisco, which removed over 800,000 pelts.