Table 41. --Age and sex, by month, of fur seals collected pelagically by the United States 

 off Washington, 6 February to 29 March 1969 



pregnant females collected in 1969. These data 

 are also shown for male and female fetuses, 

 by 10-day periods, in table B-15. 



Table 41. --Tag recoveries from fur seals collected pelagically 

 by the United States off Washington, 

 6 February to 29 March 1969 



[Figures in parentheses indicate number of animals that had 

 lost tags; they are included in the totals] 



Tag 



series 



Seals 

 tagged or 

 marked 



Tag recovery 



Seals colle 



in each .1 s; i 



1968 

 1966 

 1965 

 1963 

 1962 

 1961 

 1960 

 1959 

 1956 

 1957 



1/ Table does not include seals born in years when seals were 

 not tagged, nor year classes from which no tagged seals were taken. 



2/ Seal was marked only and is included in tagged seal total. 

 3/ Includes one 7-year-old seal tagged by U.S.S.R. (K17884). 



Reproduction 



The youngest pregnant female collected was 

 a 4-year-old primiparous seal taken in March. 

 Six primiparous and two multiparous and preg- 

 nant 5-year-old females were the next youngest, 

 and the oldest pregnant seal was 19. The 4- 

 year-old and the two multiparous 5-year-old 

 females had conceived at age 3 and gave or 

 would have given birth to their first pup at 

 age 4. We took three 6-year-old nonpregnant, 

 multiparous females that had aborted — two in 

 February and one in March. 



Table B-16 shows the reproductive condition, 

 by month, of female seals taken in 1969, and 

 table B-17 gives the pregnancy rates of females 

 age 3 and older. The pregnancy rates of all 

 female seals collected in the eastern North 

 Pacific Ocean by the United States since 1958 

 are shown in table 43. 



Most mature females ovulate each year. 

 Missed pregnancies occur when the egg is not 

 fertilized or, if fertilized, fails to implant. Re- 

 sorbing corpora lutea indicated that 48 percent 

 of the nonpregnant seals ages 4 to 19 years had 

 missed pregnancies (table B-18) 



39 



