Koryak is not a single contiguous block of protected land but three distinct sectors that together span 327,106 hectares. The Parapolsky sector in the northwest encompasses part of the vast Parapolsky Lowlands — a flat, waterlogged plain studded with an estimated 10,000 lakes and thermokarst ponds, drained by the Kuyul River and its tributaries. The largest of those lakes, Talovskoye, covers 44 square kilometers. To the east, the Cape Gauvin sector occupies the southern tip of the Gauvin Peninsula, separated from the main Kamchatka coast by Karaginskiy Bay. Here the Koryak Highlands rise steeply, and the rivers run through mountain gorges with cascades and waterfalls. North of Cape Gauvin, the Lavrov Bay sector curves along the Bering Sea coast, its rocks and ledges packed with seabird colonies. The three sectors share the constant wind and the near-total absence of roads and human structures — except for a few long-closed herring processing facilities.

What draws scientists to Koryak is the density of life concentrated in a landscape that can appear, at first glance, bleak. The rivers — including the Kuyul and its network of tributaries — are important spawning grounds for salmon, chum, brown trout, brook trout, and the Kamchatka grayling. In the flat, marshy Parapolsky sector, ducks, geese, cormorants, and gulls breed in the wetlands during summer, and during spring and autumn migration, hundreds of thousands of birds stop to rest here. The reserve lies directly on migratory flyways that connect the Kamchatka Peninsula to wintering grounds in Japan — protecting this corridor was one of the explicit reasons for the reserve's creation. Studies have confirmed that the majority of seabirds migrating along Kamchatka pass through Koryak's protected waters.

The coastal rocks of the Cape Gauvin and Lavrov Bay sectors host more than 30 large seabird colonies. Among the species recorded here are the Steller's sea eagle — one of the world's largest eagles, found only in the Russian Far East and northeastern Japan — along with the Aleutian tern and the spoon-billed sandpiper, a critically endangered shorebird whose global population numbers in the low hundreds of breeding pairs. Forty-four species of mammals have been documented within the reserve, including 15 marine species. Inland, the Koryak Highlands on the Gauvin Peninsula support one of the largest concentrations of bighorn sheep in all of northeast Asia. The reserve's flora, recorded at 312 species of vascular plants, includes characteristic examples of Bering forest tundra — an ecosystem that developed in relative isolation since the pre-glacial period, giving it a composition found nowhere else in quite the same form.

Zapovednik status in Russia is not a marketing designation. It means the land is closed. Casual visitors cannot enter; permits are required even for guided tours, and must be obtained in advance. Scientists and environmental educators can make arrangements with reserve management, but the process is deliberate, the access controlled, and the area genuinely removed from mass tourism. There is a small environmental education center at the main office in the city of Tilichiki, on the Bering Sea coast — a modest footprint for a reserve covering territory larger than several European countries. The reserve is also a Ramsar wetland site of international importance, meaning the Parapolsky lowlands carry formal recognition beyond Russia's own conservation system. The wind blows through it all, day after day, watched mainly by the birds.