THE NORTHERN FUR SEAL 



by Ralph C. Baker, Ford Wilke, 

 and C. Howard Baltzo 



Early History of Fur Sealing 



Over 220 years ago Georg Wilhelm Steller drew 

 up the first scientific description of the fur seal 

 when he survived the wreck of the vessel com- 

 manded by Vitus Bering off what is now called 

 Bering Island in the Commander Islands. 



Forty-two years later Gerassim Pribilof, nav- 

 igator in the service of Imperial Russia, joined 

 the search for other breeding grounds of the 

 North Pacific fur seals. Each spring the seals 

 were seen to swim northward through the passes 

 of the Aleutian Islands and disappear into the 

 fog and mist of Bering Sea. In 1786, 3 years 

 after his search began, Pribilof came upon the 

 islands that now bear his name and found fur 

 seals along the beaches in seemingly uncountable 

 numbers. Almost immediately the teeming rook- 

 eries began to yield sealskins for the fur markets 

 of the world, at about the time the 13 colonies 

 on the Atlantic coast of North America were 

 forming a new nation. 



Two years before the discovery of the Pribilof 

 Islands, adventurous skippers from New England 

 and Europe had discovered commercial possibil- 

 ities in the great herds of fur seals in the South 

 Sea Islands. The first experimental cargo of 

 13,000 pelts from the Southern Hemisphere 

 appears to have been taken at the Falkland Islands 



Authors note. — Ralph C. Baker, Assistant Director for 

 Resource Development, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, U. S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington 25, D.C. ; Ford Wilke, 

 Wildlije Research Biologist, and C. Howard Baltzo, Program 

 Director, Pribilof Fur Seal Program, Bureau of Commercial 

 Fisheries, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Seattle, Wash. 



in 1784 by the crew of the American vessel 

 States from Boston. 



In the 50 years that followed, the fur seal rook- 

 eries on Mas-a-Fuero, Juan Fernandez, the South 

 Shetlands, Prince Edward, the Antipodes, and 

 countless other islands were destroyed as fast 

 as they were discovered. Literally millions of 

 pelts were taken to the Canton market to trade 

 for tea, silks, and other products of China. The 

 huge populations of fur seals south of the 

 equator were rapidly decimated. Some herds 

 survived, however, and are still found off the 

 coasts of South Africa, South America, Australia, 

 New Zealand, the Galapagos Islands, and some 

 of the subantarctic islands. 



The exploitation of the Alaska herd at first 

 followed the same destructive pattern as that pur- 

 sued by sealers in the southern seas. Twice dur- 

 ing the Russian administration the herd on the 

 Pribilof Islands was threatened by annihilation: 

 first, through failure to restrict the numbers of 

 seals killed, and later by failure to adequately 

 protect the females. The killing of females finally 

 was forbidden by Russia after 1834, and the 

 herd began to increase. The Russians are said 

 to have taken more than IVz million pelts be- 

 tween the time of the discovery of the islands 

 and the sale of Alaska to the United States in 

 1867. 



Immediately after the purchase of Alaska by 

 the United States, a number of independent com- 

 panies began sealing operations on the Pribilof 



