Bleiksøya or Bleiksøy is a small (15 ha) uninhabited island and nature reserve in near the fishing village of

Bleik Bleik is a fishing village in Andøy Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The village is located on the northwestern part of the island of Andøya, about southwest of the village of Andenes. The village has a population (2018) of 461 whic ...

on the island of Andøya in Andøy Municipality of

Nordland Nordland (; smj, Nordlánnda, sma, Nordlaante, sme, Nordlánda, en, Northland) is a county in Norway in the Northern Norway region, the least populous of all 11 counties, bordering Troms og Finnmark in the north, Trøndelag in the south, N ...

county in

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

northern

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. It is a steep pyramidal island with grassy slopes and cliffs surrounded by gullies and boulder scree. It, with its adjacent marine waters, has been designated a 530 ha

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

(BLI) because it supports, or has supported, a large breeding colony of

Atlantic puffin The Atlantic puffin ('), also known as the common puffin, is a species of seabird in the auk family. It is the only puffin native to the Atlantic Ocean; two related species, the tufted puffin and the horned puffin is found in the northeastern ...

s. A 2016 assessment by BLI found that the puffin population was threatened by

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

and severe weather and had declined by over 90% from a historical estimate of 75,000 breeding pairs.

References

Andøy Islands of Nordland Nature reserves in Norway Important Bird Areas of Norway Important Bird Areas of Arctic islands Seabird colonies {{Nordland-island-stub