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The extensive continental shelf and deep water habitats of the Bering Sea support over 450 species of fish and shellfish.  Over 50% of the U.S. domestic fisheries catch, at an estimated value of $1 billion annually, comes from the Bering Sea as does an estimated 50% of Russia’s domestic landings.  The Bering Sea walleye pollock fishery is the world’s largest whitefish fishery, accounting for approximately 30% of all U.S. domestic landings.   All five Pacific salmon species are present in the Bering Sea, and Bristol Bay in the southeast corner of the Bering Sea supports the largest sockeye salmon runs in the world.  The Bering Sea also supports important fisheries for Pacific halibut, Pacific cod, sablefish and other groundfish.

The abundant fish populations of the Bering Sea support spectacular concentrations of top-level marine predators.  Millions of seabirds, shorebirds, and waterfowl nest on the islands that punctuate the Bering Sea or in the region’s wetlands, lagoons, and beaches.  An estimated 1.5 million pairs of least auklets nest on Kiska Island alone.  St. George, on the Pribilof Islands, supports the world’s largest colonies of red-legged kittiwakes, a species endemic to the Bering Sea. 

Marine mammals abound in the Bering Sea. Nearly the entire world’s population of northern fur seals breeds on the Pribilof Islands, on the Commander Islands, and on Bogoslof Island.  The endangered western stock of Steller sea lions and sea otters inhabit remote islands of the Aleutian chain. Pacific walruses haul out on islands throughout the Bering Sea, and during winter several species of ice seals inhabit the pack ice edge.  Historically, large populations of great whales, including blue whales, sperm whales and other species inhabited the Bering Sea in great numbers.  Commercial whaling in the early 20th century all but extirpated the great whale stocks, but many species are recovering with protection from harvest.  Gray whales have recovered from near extinction to number more than 20,000 individuals, nearly all of which spend the summer feeding in the shallow Bering Sea.  Recently, north Pacific right whales, believed to be the most critically endangered great whale, have been seen in several concentrations, and there is evidence that their population may be beginning to recover.

The Bering Sea sustains over 100,000 people in hundreds of communities, including Koryak, Yup’ik and Chukchi peoples along the Russian coast, Inupiat, Cup’ik and Yup’ik people along mainland Alaska, and Aleut people on the Commander Islands, the Aleutian Islands and the Pribilof Islands in the central Bering Sea.  Generations of hunters and fishers from these coastal cultures developed detailed knowledge and wisdom about their surroundings, knowledge that is critical to the conservation of the marine resources of the Bering Sea.  Most of the indigenous people living along the Bering Sea, on both the Alaskan and Russian coasts, remain highly dependent on the subsistence use of fish, seals, whales, seabirds and plants.

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