The red-faced cormorant, red-faced shag or violet shag (Phalacrocorax urile) is a species of cormorant that is found in the far north of the Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, from the eastern tip of Hokkaidō in Japan, via the Kuril Islands, the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands to the Alaska Peninsula and Gulf of Alaska. The red-faced cormorant is closely related to the pelagic cormorant P.