San Pedro Mártir Island

About

San Pedro Mártir is the name of an island of Mexico, located in the Gulf of California, about halfway between the coast of Baja California and Sonora. San Pedro Mártir is located in the center of the Gulf of California and is the most remote island in the Sea of Cortez. It is located 51 km from Baja California and 53 km off the coast of Sonora. The island is 2 km long and 1.5 km maximum width, with a total of 2.729 km2 of total area (272 hectares). The island is uninhabited by humans and is 60 km from Bahía Kino, the nearest city in the state of Sonora on the west coast. The island and its marine life are, since 2002, part of the San Pedro Martir Biosphere Reserve, and is regarded as a natural laboratory of adaptive evolution, similar to that of the Galápagos Islands. It is home to 292 species of fauna and flora (both land-based and aquatic), with 42 species protected by Mexican law, and 30 listed on the Red List of Threatened Species. San Pedro Martir is also unique in the area for its year-round quantity of birds. The island is the only island in the area with a perpetually swirling cloud of seabirds. This is because the water around the island, has some of the most successful marine productivity in the world, resulting in incredible densities of small-pelagic fish, such as anchovies and sardines, in comparison to other regions of the world. This attracts both seabirds and wh

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