Natural System of Wrangel Island Reserve

Located well above the Arctic Circle, the site includes the mountainous Wrangel Island, Herald Island and surrounding waters.

Wrangel was not glaciated during the Quaternary Ice Age, resulting in exceptionally high levels of biodiversity for this region.

The island is the breeding habitat of snow goose population; the marine environment is an important feeding ground for gray whale.

The islands have the largest seabird colonies on Chukchi Sea; nesting grounds for over 100 migratory bird species; significant populations of tundra bird species; world's highest density of ancestral polar bear dens; and largest Pacific walrus population congregating at its coastal rookeries.

Currently, 417 species and subspecies of vascular plant have been identified, double that of any other Arctic tundra territory of comparable size.

The number and type of endemic plant species, the diversity within plant communities, the rapid succession and mosaic of tundra types, the presence of mammoth tusks and skulls, the range of terrain types and geological formations in the small geographical space, are all visible evidence of Wrangel's rich natural history and its unique evolutionary status within the Arctic.

The process is continuing as can be observed in the unusually high densities and distinct behaviours of the Wrangel lemming populations; or in the physical adaptations of the island reindeers.

Evidence of a Neolithic camp inhabited by palaeo-Eskimo hunters of an ancient Eskimo culture of approximately 3,400 years ago are found in Krassin Bay on the south coast of Wrangel Island.

Remains of their prey species are found in abundant on the plains, which includes the woolly mammoth which lived on the island some 7,000-3,700 years ago.

Herald Island was first seen in 1849; Wrangel Island was discovered by an American whaler in 1867 and named after the Russian navigator and explorer Ferdinand von Wrangel.