CHAPTER VI. 



THE CONDITION OF THE FUR-SEAL HERD. 



A. PAST CONDITIONS. 



We have given in the preceding sketch a brief description of the more prominent 

 general features of the life history of the fur seal. This is only a brief summary of 

 the record of daily observations made by the commission, and which is given in full 

 in a subsequent part of this report. Many of these topics also are discussed in 

 greater detail in special papers contained in Part III. We may now pass to a 

 discussion of the main questions involved in the fur-seal controversy and made the 

 principal object of this investigation. The first and chief of these relates to the 

 condition of the fur-seal herd, past and present. 



ACREAGE MEASUREMENTS. 



Until the season of 189G all estimates as to the number of seals have been based 

 upon acreage measurements of one sort or another. In the early days, when the 

 rookeries were teeming with seal life, it is probable that any other method of enumera- 

 tion would have been exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. At any rate, no other 

 method was tried. 



We may say at the outset that acreage measurements of rookery population are 

 exceedingly unsatisfactory. It is no easy task to find the area of a given rookery. 

 Its length or sea front is easily ascertained, but its average width is at best purely a 

 matter of conjecture. It spreads out over the level ground, shrinks away from a sand 

 beach, climbs up hills in gullies, extends over cliff's, breaks at a cove to permit bachelors 

 to laud, thins out among rocks, and widens in great amphitheaters. Its lower boundary 

 fluctuates with the tides; its inland extension grows daily with the arrival of late- 

 coming cows, and the whole outline is changed in a few days as the bands of virgin 

 2-year-olds come into the ranks late in July. 



THE DIFFICULTY OF ACCURATE RESULTS. 



To measure a rookery, it is necessary to determine its boundaries from a distance 

 in the breeding season, and after the departure of the seals to go on the ground and 

 make the necessary measurements. It is impossible to approach the breeding mass 

 in the height of the season near enough to locate landmarks by which the person 

 making the measurements is to determine what he is doing. The best that can be 

 done is to take the natural features available, a stone here or a break in the bank, or 

 a log of driftwood there, and trust to being able to relocate them later on. The occu- 

 pancy of the seals themselves leaves no permanent trace. Behind the rookeries for a 

 considerable distance the ground has exactly the same appearance as that occupied 

 by the seals, and late in the season the rookery population, where possible, moves 

 back over its rear boundary, taking up a new position. Only natural landmarks can 



75 



