Bleiksøya or Bleiksøy is a small (15 ha) uninhabited island and nature reserve in near the
fishing village
A fishing village is a village, usually located near a fishing ground, with an economy based on catching fish and harvesting seafood. The continents and islands around the world have coastlines totalling around 356,000 kilometres (221,000 ...
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 (2023) of 456 and a ...
on the island of
Andøya
, , or is the northernmost island in the Vesterålen archipelago, situated about inside the Arctic Circle. Andøya is located in Andøy Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The main population centres on the island include the villages of ...
in
Andøy Municipality
Andøy is the northernmost List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Nordland Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is part of the Vesterålen archipelago. The main island in the municipality is Andøya. The administrative centre of the ...
of
Nordland
Nordland (; , , , ) is one of the three northernmost Counties of Norway, counties in Norway in the Northern Norway region, bordering Troms in the north, Trøndelag in the south, Norrbotten County in Sweden to the east, Västerbotten County to t ...
county in
Arctic
The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...
northern
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
. 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 i ...
(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 (biology), family. It is the only puffin native to the Atlantic Ocean; two related species, the tufted puffin and the horned puffin being found ...
s. A 2016 assessment by BLI found that the puffin population was threatened by
climate change
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...
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
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