Buldir Island

Buldir Iceland (also Buldyr Iceland ) is a small island in the western Aleutian Islands in the U.S. state of Alaska. It lies in the middle between the Near Islands in the west and the Islands Council in the East.

Geography

The now uninhabited island (as of 2000) has an area of ​​19.291 km ², with a maximum length of 7 km and a maximum width of 4 km. The two volcanoes on the island are the 656 m high Buldir volcano, which occupies most of the island and the East Cape volcano in the northeast of the island. The coastline is often composed of steep cliffs.

History

Excavations show that the island has been inhabited since ancient times several times, interrupted by longer periods uninhabited. From the extinct Steller's Sea Cow since 1768 well-preserved bones were found. Prior to this discovery, there has been no archaeological finds of this manatee outside the Commander Islands. In addition, a unique house design made ​​of whalebone was found, one of the few excavated houses of Unangan at all.

Bird colony

The island is home to 21 species of breeding seabirds and thus the most diverse seabird colony in the northern hemisphere, which are the individual from Schopfalk, Zwergalk, Bartalk, puffins, storm petrels and other species. The once endangered Aleutian dwarf Canada Goose (Branta hutchinsii leucopareia ) breeds only on the fox free Buldir and Chagulak Iceland. On Buldir there were in 1962 only 56 animals. In 2001, the stock has recovered to 37,000 animals.