Wrangel Island at The Gateway to the Arctic

Wrangel Island is a Russian territory within the Arctic Ocean and north of both the Chukchi Sea and Bering Strait. The island is approximately 7,600 square kilometers in size and one of the largest islands in the Arctic. Due to its proximity to the nearby Russian shipping ports of Pevek and Cherskiy, Wrangel Island sees significant traffic in its waters to the south and became a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1976. The island’s biodiversity is composed of the world’s largest population of Pacific walruses and the highest density of ancestral polar bear dens according to data collected by UNESCO.

In addition to its natural residents, Wrangel Island hosts migratory species from both the ocean and air. Marine mammals like the gray whale travel from as far away as Mexico to swim in the waters surrounding Wrangel Island, and nearly 100 species of birds (many endangered) flock to the island to nest in the refuge of the secluded environment. Populations like Asia’s snow goose have been able to recover from catastrophically severe numbers and remove themselves further from extinction due to the convenient breeding grounds and diverse vegetation the island offers. Wrangel Island is home to around 400 species and subspecies of vascular plants, making it home to more than double the amount of plant species on any other island in the Arctic.

Wrangel Island’s vegetative diversity is due in part to it being one of the southernmost islands in the Arctic. Interestingly enough, however, the average reach of Arctic sea ice towards Wrangel Island is nearly identical to the reach of Arctic sea ice towards Svalbard. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s model for collecting data samples from areas of the Arctic Ocean with at least 15% sea ice, sea ice is nearly symmetrically equidistant to each respective shoreline. This is interesting to note given that Wrangel Island is tucked just inside the 70th parallel while Svalbard is just below the 80th parallel on the other side of the Arctic Ocean.

(from the National Snow and Ice Data Center)

One of the primary reasons for the sea ice near Wrangel Island is due to the Bering Strait being the largest gateway to Arctic Ocean access between Alaska and Russia. On the opposite side of the Arctic Ocean, the Denmark Strait, Iceland, the Greenland Sea, and the Norwegian Sea are all between Greenland and northern continental Europe. Because of this, Arctic Sea ice does not spread in a perfect circle from the North Pole. Instead, Arctic sea ice has best remained intact in places where it is blocked by landmass from escaping the Arctic Ocean. This phenomenon offers advantages to land mammals like polar bears. Polar bears near Wrangel Island have one of the shortest swims from land to Arctic sea ice apart from the bears who migrate from Canada and Greenland.