Vilsandi

Vilsandi National Park protects the western end of the Estonian archipelago, off the coast of Saaremaa, with the island of Vilsandi, the Harilaid peninsula and more than a hundred and fifty islets and skerries, as well as a broad expanse of Baltic sea.

Its history makes it a foundational place. On 14 August 1910, on the private initiative of Artur Toom, the Vilsandi lighthouse keeper, the Riga Naturalists' Society declared the Vaika islands a wildlife reserve to protect the birds, especially against the commercial collection of eider eggs. It was the first protected area in Estonia and in all the Baltic states, and it is regarded as the beginning of modern conservation in the region. Toom continued as lighthouse keeper until 1941, and the bird observation records that he and his community kept from the beginning of the twentieth century constitute a data series of enormous scientific value.

In 1957 the Vaika Nature Reserve was established, in 1971 it was renamed the Vilsandi State Nature Reserve and in 1993 it became a national park. It is one of the main seabird colonies in the north-eastern Baltic and a pupping area for the grey seal, as well as a staging point for millions of migratory waterbirds: more than 240 species have been recorded and the park holds around a third of the country's protected plant species. The Vilsandi lighthouse, of 1809, is the oldest on the Baltic coast of Saare county.