North Pacific High Sea

Near the Pribilof Islands, tidal currents carry nutrients and plankton from the outer Bering Sea shelf toward the islands. These waters sustain fish, seabirds and the northern fur seals that gather on the shores to breed. Unangan hunters knew the seals from their migrations through the Aleutians; in the 1780s Russian seafarers found their breeding islands and began to exploit the herds on a new scale.