Academy Bay (russian: залив Академии, ''Zaliv Akademii'') is a large bay in the

Tuguro-Chumikansky District Tuguro-Chumikansky District (russian: Тугу́ро-Чумика́нский райо́н) is an administrativeResolution #143-pr and municipalLaw #194 district (raion), one of the seventeen in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located in the center ...

Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai ( rus, Хабаровский край, r=Khabarovsky kray, p=xɐˈbarəfskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is geographically located in the Russian Far East and is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District ...

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Geography

Academy Bay is located to the south of the

Shantar Islands The Shantar Islands (russian: Шантарские острова, translit=Shantarskiye ostrova) are a group of fifteen islands located off the northwestern shore of the Sea of Okhotsk east of Uda Gulf and north of Academy Bay. Most of the isla ...

, in the western

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk ( rus, Охо́тское мо́ре, Ohótskoye móre ; ja, オホーツク海, Ohōtsuku-kai) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands ...

. 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 Ulban Bay (Russian: ''Ul'bansky Zaliv'') is a bay in the northwestern Sea of Okhotsk, just south of the Shantar Islands. It is a southern branch of Academy Bay to the north. The Syran and Ulban rivers flow into its head. Geography Ulban Bay i ...

to the south, and Nikolaya Bay to the east.United States. (1918). ''Asiatic Pilot, Volume 1: East coast of Siberia, Sakhalin Island and Chosen''. Washington: Hydrographic Office.

History

Academy Bay was named by Alexander von Middendorff after the

Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

(Петербургская академия наук) during his 1844 - 1845 expedition to the area. Academy Bay was frequented by

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

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 New Bedford (Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American pe ...

, in Nikolaya Bay in 1856. Russian

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

s and boat crews from Mamga also cruised for bowheads in the bay from 1865 to 1871.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. During a four day period in mid-September 1968, the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

factory ship ''Vladivostok'' and its fleet of whale catchers illegally caught over sixty balaenids (likely bowheads) in and near Academy Bay.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.

Wildlife

In the summer

beluga whale The beluga whale () (''Delphinapterus leucas'') is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, and the only member of the genus ''Delphinapterus''. It is also known as the whi ...

s aggregate in

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...

at the heads of Ulban and Nikolaya bays to feed on spawning

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

.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. Bowhead whales are a common sight in the gulf in the summer.

Killer whale The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white pa ...

s, which have been seen preying on bowheads in the gulf, also occur here.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.

References

{{reflist, 30em Bays of the Sea of Okhotsk Bays of Khabarovsk Krai Shipwrecks in the Sea of Okhotsk