Tyuleny Island

Tyuleny Island lies in the Sea of Okhotsk, 12 kilometers southwest of Cape Terpeniya, the southern tip of the Terpeniya Peninsula on Sakhalin, within the Poronaysky municipal district of Sakhalin Oblast. The nearest major town on the Sakhalin mainland is Poronaysk. The island is small: it is a low rocky ridge with steep, almost sheer cliffs up to 18 meters high, topped by a relatively flat plateau. The island is about 636 meters long, 40 to 90 meters wide, and a wide above-water spit of pebbles extends from its southern tip. There are no permanent sources of fresh water on the island, so it has never seen any long-term human habitation.

History

The first description of the island known to Europeans was left in 1643 by the Dutch navigator Maarten Gerritsz Vries, who was surveying the coasts of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. His expedition found two huts with hearths on the island, apparently belonging to the Ainu, the indigenous people of the area, who came to the island to fish and hunt. This is also reflected in the place name: on 19th-century Japanese maps, drawn up when southern Sakhalin was within Japan's sphere of influence, the island was marked under an Ainu name translated as "island of net fishing" — a sign that the surrounding waters had long been valued by fishermen.

Nature

Tyuleny Island is one of the key ornithological areas of the Russian Far East. Its sheer cliffs and inaccessibility to predators have made it an ideal site for seabird colonies: thousands of thick-billed murres nest here, and scientists have recorded at least 143 bird species on and around the island overall. The island is just as important for marine mammals: in summer its shores and spit host large breeding haul-outs of northern fur seals and Steller sea lions, where females give birth to and nurse their pups. Hundreds of spotted seals also periodically rest on the shoals and spit. The island's vegetation is sparse and adapted to constant winds and salt spray: mosses, crustose lichens, and seabeach senecio (Senecio pseudoarnica) grow on its cliffs and plateau.

Getting there

Reaching the island on your own is difficult, as it is far from shore and surrounded by open sea. The easiest way is a one-day boat excursion from Poronaysk; the trip by boat takes about four hours each way. Because of the island's protected status and the haul-outs, large vessels are not allowed to approach closer than 30 nautical miles, and sounding ship horns is also banned in its waters, so as not to disturb the bird colonies and haul-outs.