Academy Bay (Sea Of Okhotsk)
Geography
Academy Bay is located to the south of the Shantar Islands, in the western Sea of Okhotsk. Its western and eastern points, Seneka Point and Cape Wrangel, are 56 km (35 mi) apart, while the bay itself is 88.5 km (55 mi) deep in a southwesterly direction.
The bay has three branches: Konstantina Bay to the west, Ulban Bay to the south, and Nikolaya Bay to the east.
History
Academy Bay was named by Alexander von Middendorff after the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences (Петербургская академия наук) during his 1844 - 1845 expedition to the area.
Academy Bay was frequented by American whaleships hunting bowhead whales between 1852 and 1889. They called its southern branch Ulban Bay Mercury Bay (though this term was sometimes applied to the entire bay). Benjamin F. Wing, master of the ship Good Return, reported as many as forty-five other ships in the bay in 1854. Two ships were wrecked in the bay: the ship Washington, of Sag Harbor, in Ulban Bay in 1855 and the ship Natchez, of New Bedford, in Nikolaya Bay in 1856.
Russian schooners and boat crews from Mamga also cruised for bowheads in the bay from 1865 to 1871.
During a four day period in mid-September 1968, the Soviet factory ship Vladivostok and its fleet of whale catchers illegally caught over sixty balaenids (likely bowheads) in and near Academy Bay.
Wildlife
In the summer beluga whales aggregate in estuaries at the heads of Ulban and Nikolaya bays to feed on spawning salmon. Bowhead whales are a common sight in the gulf in the summer. Killer whales, which have been seen preying on bowheads in the gulf, also occur here.
References
- ^ United States. (1918). Asiatic Pilot, Volume 1: East coast of Siberia, Sakhalin Island and Chosen. Washington: Hydrographic Office.
- ^ J. E. Donnell, of New Bedford, July 24-Sep. 19, 1852, Martha's Vineyard Museum; Fortune, of New Bedford, July 27-Oct. 5, 1853, Nicholson Whaling Collection (NWC); Arnolda, of New Bedford, Aug. 24-26, 1874, Old Dartmouth Historical Society (ODHS); Mary and Helen II, of San Francisco, Aug. 13-15, 1885, Kendall Whaling Museum; E. F. Herriman, of San Francisco, October 4-5, 1889, GBWL #761.
- ^ Good Return, of New Bedford, Aug. 27, 1854, ODHS.
- ^ Mary Frazier, of New Bedford, July 9, 1855, NWC.
- ^ Hawaii. (1865). Reports of a portion of the decisions rendered by the Supreme Court of the Hawaiian Islands in law, equity, admiralty, and probate. Honolulu: Govt. Press.
- ^ Starbuck, Alexander (1878). History of the American Whale Fishery from Its Earliest Inception to the year 1876. Castle. ISBN 1-55521-537-8.
- ^ Lindholm, O. V., Haes, T. A., & Tyrtoff, D. N. (2008). Beyond the frontiers of imperial Russia: From the memoirs of Otto W. Lindholm. Javea, Spain: A. de Haes OWL Publishing.
- ^ Ivashchenko, Y. V. & P. J. Clapham. (2012). "Soviet catches of right whales Eubalaena japonica and bowhead whales Balaena mysticetus in the North Pacific Ocean and the Okhotsk Sea". Endang. Species Res., Vol. 18: 201-217.
- ^ Solovyev, B. A., Shpak, O. V., Glazov, D. M., Rozhnov, V. V., & D. M. Kuznetsova. (2015). "Summer distribution of beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) in the Sea of Okhotsk". Russian J. Theriol. 14 (2): 201-215.
- ^ Shpak, O. V., Meschersky, I. G., Chichkina, A. N., Kuznetsova, D. M., Paramonov, A. Y., & V. V. Rozhnov. (2014). "New data on the Okhotsk Sea bowhead whales". Paper presented to the Scientific Committee of IWC 65. 5 pp.