St. Lazaria Island is a nesting bird colony located west of Sitka,

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

. It is a part of the Gulf of Alaska unit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and is protected as the Saint Lazaria Wilderness. It is located in Sitka Sound, just south of Kruzof Island, and within the limits of the City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska. The island's name is Kanasx'ée in the

Tlingit language The Tlingit language ( ; ' ) is an Indigenous language of the northwestern coast of North America, which is spoken by the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada and is a branch of the Na-Dene language family. Extensive effor ...

Island geography

St. Lazaria is a very rugged looking island with limited and difficult access. Its direct exposure to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

makes it ideal for birds to inhabit. Most likely the island is a

volcanic plug A volcanic plug, also called a volcanic neck or lava neck, is a volcano, volcanic object created when magma hardens within a Volcanic vent, vent on an active volcano. When present, a plug can cause an extreme build-up of high gas pressure if risi ...

— the remnants of an old and eroded

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

— which would make St. Lazaria an older volcanic cousin to the adjacent Mount Edgecumbe on Kruzof Island. The island itself is low with broken terrain due to its volcanic origins. Its highest point is above sea level and there are two small summits on the island with a low, treeless saddle connecting the two that can often be overcome by waves during storms and at high tide. There are many

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of Rock (geology), rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. ...

s that can get up to tall and shoot strait into the ocean as well as sea-level

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

s that can be explored on a calm day by thrill-seeking individuals in small craft.

Refuge history

St. Lazaria Island is just one of the 2,500 islands throughout Alaska that comprise the Alaska Maritime Wildlife Refuge. It was originally designated as a "refuge for seabirds" in 1909, and received official

wilderness Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plurale tantum, plural) are Earth, Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human impact on the environment, human activity, or any urbanization, nonurbanized land not u ...

designation from congress in 1970. Saint Lazaria National Wildlife Refuge was added to the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge in 1980.

Flora and fauna

Just about all the wildlife on St. Lazaria is birds. On the island there are: *250,000 breeding pairs of fork-tailed storm-petrels and

Leach's storm-petrel Leach's storm petrel or Leach's petrel (''Hydrobates leucorhous'') is a small seabird of the tubenose order. It is named after the British zoologist William Elford Leach. The scientific name is derived from Ancient Greek. ''Hydrobates'' is from ...

s. *4-5,000

common Common may refer to: As an Irish surname, it is anglicised from Irish Gaelic surname Ó Comáin. Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Com ...

and

thick-billed murre The thick-billed murre or Brünnich's guillemot (''Uria lomvia'') is a bird in the auk family (Alcidae). This bird is named after the Danish zoologist Morten Thrane Brünnich. The very deeply black North Pacific subspecies ''Uria lomvia arra'' i ...

s. *1,500-2,000 breeding pairs of tufted puffins. *1,000 breeding pairs of rhinoceros auklets. Other less populous species include:

pigeon guillemot The pigeon guillemot (''Cepphus columba'') () is a species of bird in the auk family, Alcidae. One of three species in the genus ''Cepphus'', it is most closely related to the spectacled guillemot. There are five subspecies of the pigeon guille ...

s, glaucous-winged gulls,

ancient murrelet The ancient murrelet (') is a bird in the auk family. The English term "murrelet" is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the common guillemot. Ancient murrelets are called "ancient" because t ...

s, Cassin's auklets,

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche ...

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known simply as the peregrine, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (raptor) in the family (biology), family Falconidae renowned for its speed. A large, Corvus (genus), cro ...

s, and black oystercatchers. In nesting areas on the island, the bird density can reach 7000 birds per acre. The only trees on the island are

Sitka Spruce ''Picea sitchensis'', the Sitka spruce, is a large, coniferous, evergreen tree growing to just over tall, with a trunk diameter at breast height that can exceed 5 m (16 ft). It is by far the largest species of spruce and the fifth- ...

which are located at the highest points of elevation.

Visiting

It is a popular day boat-trip for Sitkans or a place to cruise around for fishermen already in the area. St. Lazaria is not supposed to be visited by foot from anyone other than permitted scientists as every square foot of ground contains burrows for nesting birds and can be easily crushed, disturbed, or destroyed. However, over 2,000 people a year visit the island by boat circling around the volcanic hulk — admiring its birds, cliffs, caves, and other volcanic landforms. Small and large-scale tour operators alike make St. Lazaria a popular and well-known tourist destination in Sitka.

References

External links

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service websiteAlaska Department of Fish and GameWilderness.net writeup
{{Protected Areas of Alaska Alexander Archipelago IUCN Category Ib Protected areas of Sitka, Alaska Volcanic plugs of the United States Wilderness areas of Alaska Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge