the Pribilof Islands from 1956 to 1962 to reduce the population 

 size. The experiment was based on a theoretical assessment 

 suggesting that the size of the population was too large to 

 produce the maximum yield of skins. Between 1963 and 1968, an 

 effort was made to stabilize the population by harvesting 

 females believed to be in excess of the number needed to 

 maintain a stable population. As a result of these efforts, 

 the Pribilof Islands' fur seal population was reduced to a 

 level of about 1.3 million by the early to mid-1970s. After 

 1968, commercial harvests were again limited to juvenile male 

 seals that were believed unnecessary for maintaining the 

 herd's reproductive potential. Between 1968 and 1984, 

 commercial harvests on the Pribilof Islands declined steadily 

 from 58,908 to 22,416 seals. 



From the late 1970s through early 1980s, the decline in 

 the size of the Pribilof Islands' fur seal population continued. 

 The cause or causes of the population decline since the 

 mid-1970s has not been determined although entanglement in 

 lost and discarded fishing gear is considered to be a 

 contributing, if not a major, cause of the decline. By 1983, 

 the population on the Pribilof Islands had declined to an esti- 

 mated 871,000 animals. 



In October 1984, a Protocol to extend the Interim 

 Convention to 1988 was signed by representatives of all four 

 contracting governments. However, due in part to concerns 

 precipitated by the declining size of the fur seal population, 

 the United States did not ratify the Protocol, and the 

 Convention therefore expired. As a result, management authority 

 for fur seals in the United States became subject to domestic 

 laws, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which, among 

 other things, preclude commercial harvesting unless the Act's 

 moratorium on taking is waived. (Although the Marine Mammal 

 Protection Act was enacted into law in 1972, it explicitly 

 provided that its provisions would not supercede those of any 

 existing international agreements for managing marine mammals, 

 such as the Interim Convention on fur seals, to which the 

 United States was a party.) Since 1984, the population decline 

 has continued although recent analyses of pup production suggest 

 that the decline may have slowed and is perhaps coming to an 

 end. The most recent estimate of the size of the Pribilof 

 Islands' fur seal population is 800,000 animals. 



The 1988 Subsistence Harvest 



Alaska Natives who live on the Pribilof Islands have 

 relied on meat and other by-products from the commercial 

 harvest of North Pacific fur seals for subsistence purposes 

 since the 1700s. Since the last commercial harvest in 1984, 

 subsistence harvests of sub-adult male fur seals by Native 



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