Nordre Isfjorden National Park ( no, Nordre Isfjorden nasjonalpark) lies on
Spitsbergen Island in the
Svalbard archipelago,
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 the ...
. It lies across the
Isfjorden north of
Barentsburg
Barentsburg (russian: Баренцбург) is the second-largest settlement in Svalbard, Norway, with about 455 inhabitants (). A coal mining town, the settlement is almost entirely made up of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians.
History
Rijpsburg, ...
. The park was opened in 2003.
The park carries the name of the
fjord
In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Förden and East Jutland Fjorde, Germany, ...
Isfjorden, one of the largest fjords in Svalbard. On the northern section of this fjord lies a virgin coastal landscape that sustains considerable vegetation and wildlife.
Wildlife
During certain points in the year there is an inflow of warm, saline water into the Isfjorden, which results in the circulation of water layers that foster the growth of plankton, which sustains large number of crustaceans. The crustaceans attract fish like the capelin and polar cod, which in turn draw seabirds and mammals.
Birds
Only a few species of birds live in or visit the park, but the ones that are found here often gather in huge numbers. The birds found in Isfjorden include
Brünnich's guillemot
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 ...
,
little auk
The little auk or dovekie (''Alle alle'') is a small auk, the only member of the genus ''Alle''. ''Alle'' is the Sami name of the long-tailed duck; it is onomatopoeic and imitates the call of the drake duck. Linnaeus was not particularly fam ...
,
Atlantic puffin,
glaucous gull,
northern fulmar
The northern fulmar (''Fulmarus glacialis''), fulmar, or Arctic fulmar is a highly abundant seabird found primarily in subarctic regions of the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans. There has been one confirmed sighting in the Southern Hem ...
and
black-legged kittiwake. Other notable species recorded here are
barnacle and
pink-footed geese, and the Svalbard
rock ptarmigan
The rock ptarmigan (''Lagopus muta'') is a medium-sized game bird in the grouse family. It is known simply as the ptarmigan in the UK. It is the official bird for the Canadian territory of Nunavut, where it is known as the ''aqiggiq'' (ᐊᕿ ...
.
References
Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management on Nordre Isfjorden Land National Park
National parks of Svalbard
Protected areas established in 2003
2003 establishments in Norway
Spitsbergen
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