distance from shore and there pursue and seek to capture those 

 seals which had just been driven off the land by them" (U.S. 

 Congress, House 1911, Appendix A, p. 607). 



In 1908 "no attempt was made. . .to count pups on any of 

 the rookeries for the reason that during the latter part of July 

 and early August hardly a day passed that there were not one 

 or more Japanese sealers operating off the rookeries. Under 

 the circumstances both Maj. Clark and myself deemed it to the 

 best interest of the seal herd not to subject the rookeries to the 

 great disturbance necessary in pup counting" (Lembkey 

 1911b:648). Ezra Clark was agent of St. George Island from 

 about 1906 to 1908. 



Pelagic sealing was wasteful exploitation of a resource at sea 

 and it encouraged overkilling on land. Wrote the Pribilof 

 agent in 1907 "unless this settlement [of the pelagic sealing 

 question] on a satisfactory basis appears imminent, 1 would 

 recommend the killing on land of every seal that can be killed 

 under existing law" (Lembkey 1908:14). 



By intradepartmental order of 28 December 1908, the Secre- 

 tary of Commerce and Labor assigned to the Commissioner of 

 Fisheries, Bureau of Fisheries, the administration of the Prib- 

 ilof Islands and the fur seal industry. The Bureau started in 

 early 1909 to assemble an elaborate card file of information on 

 every aspect of the islands, their natural history and their hu- 

 man history (U.S. Congress, House 1911, Appendix A, p. 

 703). It was classified in 22 subjects. We do not know how 

 long it was maintained. 



In the summer of 1909, George A. Clark returned to the is- 

 lands as a special assistant to take a fur seal "census" as he 

 had done in 1897. He found that during the 12-yr period the 

 total herd had shrunk to only one-third of its 1897 size. He es- 

 timated that 6,000 pups, or 8.3% of those born, had died of 

 starvation in 1909. These shocking facts were sent to the State 

 Department with a view to the renewal of efforts for an inter- 

 national agreement (Clark 1911). 



During the summer of 1909, Clark preserved bits of testes 

 from a 3-yr-old and an 8-yr-old seal, probably at the request of 

 Frank M. MacFarland, of Stanford University. The specimens 

 were later studied by Oliver (1913) and Starks (1928). (Dorothy 

 Starks was daughter of the famed ichthyologist, Edwin C. 

 Starks.) Starks (1928:490) was first to report on the chromo- 

 some number of fur seals "diploid number of 28 plus 2, and a 

 haploid of 14 plus X or Y." 



The first successful experiment in weaning silver pups was 

 carried out in 1909-10 by boatswain Thurber on board the rev- 

 enue cutter Bear (U.S. Congress, House 1911, Appendix A, p. 

 728-732; Evermann 1911). Two pups, "Bismark" and 

 "Mamie," were captured on St. Paul Island on 8 and 9 Octo- 

 ber 1909. They were fed at first on "evaporated cream mixed 

 with bits of fish," later on fish alone. They were eventually de- 

 livered by boat and rail to the Bureau of Fisheries Aquarium in 

 Washington, D.C., in January 1910. Here they died in 1918 

 (Bower 1919:99). 



On 7 October 1909, "small threadlike worms found in the tra- 

 chea of a pup from the Reef" were saved by James Judge (U.S. 

 Congress, House 1911, Appendix A, p. 1173). These became 

 the type specimens of Orthohalarachne atlenuata (Banks) 1910 

 (originally described as Halarachne attenuata), one of two 

 species of nasal mites known from the fur seal (Newell 1947: 

 250). 



Evermann proposed on 24 February 1910 that Thurber be 

 hired for the summ.er to raise 20 pups in a nursery at Unalaska. 



"These pups would have a considerable commercial value, and 

 could easily be disposed of at a price sufficient to more than 

 offset the cost of raising. Having domesticated a number of 

 these pups, it is suggested that overtures be made to the British 

 Government with the object of furnishing the Canadian Gov- 

 ernment with enough pups to start a rookery of their own on 

 the Atlantic coast" (U.S. Congress, House 1911, Appendix A, 

 p. 934). 



Late in 1909, when the North American Commercial Com- 

 pany had taken its last quota of skins, the question of re-leasing 

 the 20-yr sealing right became critical. A Senate resolution in- 

 troduced in December, backed by Elliott and the Camp-Fire 

 Club, called for the abolition of the leasing system, for a 10-yr 

 closed season on land killing, and for revision of the Paris 

 regulations (U.S. Congress, House 1911, Appendix A, p. 736). 

 The Bureau of Fisheries countered with a proposal that the 

 leasing system be perpetuated, though with the Government in 

 control of virtually all activities on the islands. (At that time, 

 the Company owned much of the property on the islands, in- 

 cluding the homes of the Aleuts.) Jordan, however, hoped that 

 the Government would "not under any circumstances lease the 

 products of the islands, at least in such form as has been in 

 vogue for the past 40 years" (U.S. Congress, House 191 1, Ap- 

 pendix A, p. 813). 



Executive Order 1044, dated 27 February 1909, set aside 

 Walrus and Otter Islands as a bird reservation to be known as 

 the Pribilof Reservation. The Bureau, on 15 April 1909, ap- 

 pointed James Judge "a warden to have immediate supervi- 

 sion. . .of all matters pertaining to the birds not only of the 

 reservation but of the entire Pribilof group" (U.S. Congress, 

 House 1911, Appendix A, p. 904). Judge's first report was 

 dated 12 October 1909. It is interesting to read that on three 

 visits to Walrus Island in June and September he saw only one 

 live northern sea lion, Eumetopias jubatus, where today there 

 are thousands. In the following year, all of the Pribilofs were 

 declared a special reservation. Judge was continued as warden 

 under the new chief naturalist, Hahn (U.S. Congress, House 

 1911, Appendix A, p. 983). 



THE TRANSITION YEARS, 1910-11 



This important "act [36 Stat. 326 (1910)] to protect the seal 

 fisheries of Alaska, and for other purposes" was approved on 

 21 April 1910, effective 1 May 1910 (U.S. Congress, House 

 1911, Appendix A, p. 941). It continued the ban on pelagic 

 sealing by U.S. nationals and the ban on killing females and 

 pups on land. It declared the Pribilofs a special reservation for 

 government purposes. Most important, it did away with the 

 leasing system and made the Secretary of Commerce and 

 Labor directly responsible for the Pribilof Islands and the fur 

 seal industry. When the lease of the North American Commer- 

 cial Company expired on 1 May 1910, the Government took 

 control of sealing and has held it ever since. During 1910 and 

 1911, though pelagic sealing was being carried on by Canadi- 

 ans and Japanese, a treaty designed to prevent it was taking 

 shape. The fur seal population was still declining. 



In 1907, Elliott had turned for help to William T. Horna- 

 day, director of the New York Zoo and director of the Camp- 

 Fire Club of America. From then until 1911, when the Fur Seal 

 Treaty was signed, there ensued "one of the longest, dirtiest 

 political battles America had known" (Martin 1946a:238). To 

 Hornaday and his allies in the Camp-Fire Club much credit is 



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