Aleutian Islands Biosphere Reserve

The Aleutian Islands are designated a Biosphere Reserve – an international recognition given by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1976.

The hope is to conserve for present and future use the diversity and integrity of biotic communities of plants and animals within natural ecosystems and to safeguard the genetic diversity of species on which their continuing evolution depends.

The reasons why the Aleutian Islands were chosen are perhaps as numerous as the more than 200 islands themselves. Here are a few examples.

(1) Buldir Island (a 3-by-5-mile dot between the Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean near the western end of the Aleutian Chain) provides nesting habitat for 21 kinds of seabirds – more than two million individuals. Buldir Island is also the nesting stronghold of the formerly endangered (now recovered), tiny Aleutian cackling goose.

(2) Kiska Island contains the world’s largest nesting population of least auklets – estimates vary from 1 to 5 million birds.

(3) The Rat and Andreanof island groups are among the few areas where sea otters survived commercial exploitation. From there, sea otters expanded into areas of their historic range along the Aleutian Chain.

(4) The Aleutian Islands host more salmon spawning streams (360) than on any other refuge in the United States.

(5) Bogoslof Island (about one-mile long) hosts one of two breeding groups of northern fur seals (the other in the Pribilofs) and one of three nesting colonies of red-legged kittiwakes in the nation (one of the other being Buldir Island).

(6) Chagulak Island hosts the world’s largest nesting concentration of northern fulmars – more than half a million birds.

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