Academy Bay is located to the south of the Shantar Islands, in the western Sea of Okhotsk.

Academy Bay was frequented by American whaleships hunting bowhead whales between 1852 and 1889.

[5][6] Russian schooners and boat crews from Mamga also cruised for bowheads in the bay from 1865 to 1871.

[7] During a four day period in mid-September 1968, the Soviet factory ship Vladivostok and its fleet of whale catchers illegally caught over sixty balaenids (likely bowheads) in and near Academy Bay.

[8] In the summer beluga whales aggregate in estuaries at the heads of Ulban and Nikolaya bays to feed on spawning salmon.