The main attrac­tion of the ani­mal world of the Ushkany Islands is the Baikal seal — the ner­pa. The rocky shores of the islands are con­sid­ered a favorite rook­ery for seals — on Tonkiy Island alone, up to 2 thou­sand seals are tak­en to the rook­ery at the same time. The fau­na is dif­fer­ent from the main­land fau­na. One of the most unique phe­nom­e­na on the islands is the unusu­al num­ber of anthills. On the Big Island alone there are sev­er­al thou­sand anthills — their den­si­ty reach­es a record 20 anthills per 0.01 km².

The Big Island has the best pre­served “pri­mor­dial” for­est — most of the island is cov­ered with tall larch­es and pines with an under­growth of Dau­ri­an rhodo­den­dron bloom­ing with pur­ple inflo­res­cences. Here, many plants have fea­tures that can only be found on the Ushkany Islands. On the Big Island, for exam­ple, you can find spec­i­mens of Dahuri­an larch with a bot­­tle-shaped thick­en­ing of the bark at the base of the trunk, birch with black bark and trees with flag-shaped crowns. In sum­mer, bloom­ing sea­weed is often found on the steep shores of the islands, and brown lichen is found on the coastal rocks. The islands them­selves are formed main­ly from crys­talline lime­stones.