BARENTS SEA, July 15. /TASS/. The Arctic Floating University expedition met in the southern part of the Barents Sea fork-tailed gulls - far from their usual habitat, a TASS correspondent reported from aboard the Professor Molchanov research vessel. Fork-tailed gull nests in the Russian Arctic on the Taymyr Peninsula and further to the east.

"It is rare to this region. The fork-tailed gull has an Amerasian range, and in this country it nests from the Taymyr and further to the east, and then - in the American and Canadian Arctic. After nesting, it flies to the Arctic Ocean, then flies for the winter to trans-equator areas in the southern hemisphere, and it does so along the Pacific part," Maria Gavrilo, a leading researcher at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, told TASS. "The nesting site in the Russian Arctic, nearest to the east, would be the northernmost part of Severnaya Zemlya, where I found the only nest in 2019. It rarely flies to here."

Scientists know a very small colony of fork-tailed gulls on Spitsbergen. It is not clear from where the bird has flown to the Barents Sea south - Spitsbergen and Severnaya Zemlya are equally far away. Migration routes of those populations have not been studied. "They have been tagged only in the Canadian Arctic and their migration has been traced only from the Canadian Arctic to the southern hemisphere. However, on Spitsbergen or in Russia they haven't been tagged, thus we do not have any documentary confirmation of their migration routes, and as for the distance, those islands are equally far away," she added.

Arctic Floating University - 2024

On June 25, the Arctic Floating University departed from Arkhangelsk to conduct research in the White and Barents Seas, on the Kolguev Island, on islands of Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land.

The project's partners and sponsors are the Arkhangelsk Region's government, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Russian Geographical Society, VTB Bank, Norilsk Nickel, Roshydromet (the hydrometeorology service), the Russian Arctic National Park, the Floating University Coordination Center at MIPT (Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; also known as PhysTech), the Nauka (Science) year-round youth educational center.

The Arctic Floating University's expeditions continue under the Science and Universities national project, implemented by Russia's Ministry of Science and Higher Education.