Franz Josef Land and snow bunting. Some ivory gulls, little auks and Brünnich's guillemots opt to spend the winter on the islands. The polar bear population of Franz Josef Land lies within the Barents Sea subpopulation, which also includes polar bears inhabiting Svalbard and the western coast of Novaya Zemlya. In 2004, the Barents Sea subpopulation was estimated at 2,650. There is also a population of Arctic fox, which typically have their territories near seabird habitats. Being declared as a marine mammal sanctuary, the island has rich biodiversity of rare marine mammals. Three species of seals habit the archipelago. Harp seal is the
Novaya Zemlya detected by German U-boats and visually confirmed by German reconnaissance aircraft. On the night of July 4, the German battleship "Tirpitz" and the heavy cruisers "Admiral Scheer", "Lutzow", and "Hipper," closed on PQ-17 and sank four allied merchant ships. The British Admiralty responded by diverting the convoy’s escort vessels to the west to engage the German warships, and ordered the now-vulnerable merchant vessels to scatter. Seeking the hoped-for sanctuary of Matochkin Strait, several of the ships headed toward Novaya Zemlya at flank speed. S.A. Kerslake, a crew-member aboard the British Trawler "Northern Gem", recorded in his diary: …we were making