Bristol Bay, with an area of 83 thousand square meters. km, located in the southeastern part of the Bering Sea (Pacific Ocean), off the southwestern coast of Alaska. The northern border is Cape Newenham, the southern border is the Alaska Peninsula and Unimak Island, which are covered with mountains and volcanic hills.
Characteristic
In order to find Bristol Bay on the world map, you first need to find the mainland - North America. And already in its northwestern part this water area is located. The entrance to the bay is 480 km wide. Navigation is limited, only small boats of fishermen can pass. The water area "cuts" deep into the mainland for 320 km. The average depth is 27-55 meters, in the largest depression this figure increases to 84. Ocean tides on the coast are among the highest in the world. Sometimes they exceed 10 meters. A large number of riffles and shoals makes navigation difficult, especially during strong winds and frequent fog, which makes the area very dangerous for large ships.
Let's look intohistory
Eleven thousand years ago, Bristol Bay was much smaller on the map. Most of its current part was land, which belonged to the biogeographic region - Beringia (a land bridge between Asia and North America). At the same time, the first settlers arrived in Alaska - the ancestors of the Indians and Paleo-Asians. In 1778, the bay was discovered by James Cook, who named it in honor of the admiral Earl of Bristol. In the 1790s, temporary Russian settlements appeared on the coast, and in the first half of the 19th century, search parties of the Russian-American company appeared. It was then that the shores of the bay were explored and described, thanks to which many Russian names are still preserved on the map.
Features
If you find the Bristol Bay on the map, you can see that nine relatively large rivers flow into it: Sinder, Nushagak, Igedzhik, Kvichak and others. The mouths of most water streams and small springs are located on the low northern coast and in the depths of the water area. Rivers come down from the mountains. And in the lower reaches they flow in a swampy, wooded area. The largest bays are Kvichak and Nushagak.
Settlements
The largest coastal settlements are Dillingham, King Salmon and Naknek. Their total population (Indians, whites and mestizos) does not exceed five thousand people. Small settlements of fishermen - Eskimos, Athabaskans and Aleuts - are scattered along the coast. Bristol Bay is still almost untouched by civilization. There are no river dams, hydroelectric power plants and forest clearings on its banks. It is also worth noting that there are no roads here. In total, about 7,500 people live on the coast, of which 66% are natives.
Animals and flora
Bristol Bay in North America, together with estuaries, is the world's largest spawning ground for sockeye salmon, with 30-40 million sockeye salmon coming for several weeks every summer. In addition to it, chum salmon, as well as coho salmon and chinook salmon spawn in this water area. There are a lot of rainbow trout and grayling in the rivers, feeding on sockeye caviar. Northern pike, char and Dolly Varden are also found. Marine mammals are represented by seals, walruses, sea otters, beluga whales and killer whales.
The fauna and flora of the coast are typical of the transition zone between taiga and tundra. Brown and black bears, beavers, porcupines, wolverines, otters, wolves, foxes, and deer are found in forests and swamps. Many species of waterfowl live in the reservoirs, and among the largest birds of prey are the bald eagle and the bald eagle.
Fishing is the main field
Industry is represented by commercial fishing and fish processing enterprises, providing 75% of jobs in the region. The four species of salmon caught here account for 40% of the commercial catch in the United States and a third of all catch in Alaska waters. Bristol Bay attracts a large number of sports anglers (about 37 thousand people a year), hunting is carried out in the forests, and the influx of tourists from the Katmai National Park, located on the southern coast of the Alaska Peninsula, is increasing every year.
Mineral resources
Oil and gas fields were discovered on the southern coast of the bay, but a moratorium was imposed on their exploitation in 1998, confirmed in 2014. The most serious threat to the ecology of the bay is the plans of the Pebble mining consortium, which has explored a geological anomaly on the coast, including perhaps the largest gold deposit and one of the largest copper deposits on the planet. According to experts, Bristol Bay "hides" underground 40 million tons of copper, 3300 - gold and 2.8 million - molybdenum, capable of bringing from 100 to 500 billion dollars. Whereas the income from the salmon fishery is $ 120 million a year.
To extract minerals, it is planned to dig a giant quarry, create several dams in a seismic and dangerous area to contain lakes of toxic waste, lay hundreds of miles of roads and build a power plant and a deep-water port. Almost 130 million cubic meters of water per year will be required for industrial needs, which will lead to shallowing of rivers. Opponents of mining point out that fish is a renewable resource, while mining will deplete natural resources over time and destroy the local ecosystem.
