check on percentage of tag loss. Three years later, in 1961, it 

 was found that the probability of one tag being lost was 67%; 

 of both tags, 3%. In 1960, the lettering "Washington, D.C." 

 was replaced by "Seattle, Wash." 



In 1958, Maynard Murray, of Chicago, asked the Bureau of 

 Commercial Fisheries to obtain 50 lb (23 kg) of fur seal 

 thymus. "We are investigating whether or not the thymus in a 

 seal atrophies after puberty as it does in many land mammals. 

 The answer . . . would be critical in our (cancer?) research" 

 (letter of 16 June 1958). In September 1958, Scheffer collected 

 various bodies from the ventral thorax of 13 seals and sent 

 them to Murray; none proved to be thymus. An entire 

 newborn pup collected in July 1959 and preserved in Formalin 

 was later sent to Murray. The project was dropped after 1959. 

 A curious relationship between high air temperature on St. 

 Paul Island in January to March and low pup mortality on 

 land the following summer was discovered by Abegglen in 

 1958. It was examined further by Roppel et al. (1963:40) who 

 showed on the basis of 12-yr data that "The mean air 

 temperature for St. Paul Island ... 1 July to 30 June, and the 

 total count of dead pups in the following August continue to 

 show a significant inverse relationship [which] cannot be 

 explained." 



In 1958, whole blood or blood serum samples were collected 

 from fur seals at the request of four individuals: B. S. 

 Blumberg, Kazuo Fujino, George Ridgway, and H. R. Wolfe. 

 Two of these later published on results of their studies 

 (Blumberg et al. 1960; Fujino and Cushing 1960). Wolfe had 

 earlier published on serology of pinnipeds other than fur seals 

 (Pauly and Wolfe 1957). A brief resume of Ridgway's findings 

 was placed in the unpublished annual report for 1958 (Abeg- 

 glen et al. 1958:53"). Much work remains to be done on fur seal 

 blood. Eventually we may be able to identify the birthplace of 

 a seal, at least its native island, through blood analysis. Fujino 

 and Cushing (1960) found that "individual variations exist in 

 the erythrocyte antigens of fur seals" collected off Japan in 

 the spring of 1958. In a total of 234 blood samples they found 

 nonrandom distribution of types, "suggestive that some local- 

 ization of breeding stocks is maintained within the winter 

 population from year to year." 



A small-scale study of the quality of skins taken from females 

 on land was launched in 1958. It represented an effort to evalu- 

 ate skins new to the fur trade, namely, those of older females. 

 According to Abegglen et al. (1959:39") the skins of 248 known- 

 age females collected on St. Paul Island in August 1958 were 

 graded by the Fouke Fur Company. The percentages of "Regu- 

 lars" (Fines, One's, and Two's) were as follows: 



Body length 



(in) 



(cm) 

 Percentage 



regulars 



40 41 42 43 44 45 46-52 

 102 104 107 109 112 114 117-132 



57 64 46 56 34 34 



22 



The study demonstrated the rapid dropoff in quality of larger 

 skins from older animals. About 24 of the skins were rejected 

 in routine processing. All skins processed by a new shearing 

 technique (later known as Lakoda) were finished satisfac- 

 torily. 



For the record, we give a brief account of the origin of the 

 shearing technique. In the fall of 1957, Lavrenty Stepetin kill- 

 ed 10 tagged yearlings on St. Paul Island, primarily for their 

 known-age teeth. He sent the skins to the Marine Mammal 

 Biological Laboratory. One of them was forwarded to the New 

 Method Fur Dressing Company (San Francisco), where the 

 pelage was sheared near the outer level of the fur. "This 

 unusual treatment is a test of utilization of fur sealskins having 

 poor quality fur" (entry in BDM catalog under specimen no. 

 511). On 24 February 1958, the Laboratory sent the sheared 

 skin to Ralph C. Baker (Central office, U.S. Bureau of Com- 

 mercial Fisheries), who forwarded it to the Fouke Fur Com- 

 pany for examination. The Company filed a patent claim on 

 18 March 1959 for the shearing process (Pingree 1961). The 

 first sheared skins, under the Fouke trade name "Lakoda," 

 were sold in October 1960. "It seems obvious," wrote Baker in 

 a letter of 13 June 1962 to the Directory of the Bureau of Com- 

 mercial Fisheries, "that the idea of shearing sealskins came to 

 Mr. Pingree after they received the sheared skins sent to them 

 by the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries." (Pingree may have 

 seen only the one skin, or he may have seen others, since the 

 New Method firm sheared other specimens for the Laboratory 

 in the spring of 1958.) The word "Lakoda" is derived from 

 "lakudaq — fur of a sea-bear; female seal pup (Pribilof Island 

 dialect)" (Geoghegan 1944:113). 



Two studies of pelage anatomy and histology were carried 

 out between 1957 and 1961. The first resulted in a general 

 description of the pelage (Scheffer 1 962); the second in a calen- 

 dar of molt stages according to age and sex (Scheffer and 

 Johnson 1963). In the latter study, the investigators were sur- 

 prised to find that fur fibers accumulate in the skin with age; a 

 silver pup has about 15 per bundle and an old adult over 50. 

 They also found that only three-fourths of the guard hairs 

 molt annually. During the study, the mammary gland-complex 

 was dissected for the first time. It is very large, reaching from 

 the fore flippers to the heels (Scheffer 1962:54-55). 



Seals with abnormal pelage known as "rub" are frequently 

 seen on land and at sea. Over the rubbed area the guard hairs 

 are absent or sparse, and the fur fibers are snarled and matted 

 (Scheffer 1962, pis. 77B, 78, 79). Pelage specimens from the 

 two adult seals illustrated in Scheffer's plates were sent frozen 

 and in Formalin to a Public Health Service laboratory in 1958. 

 Robert W. Menges reported (in letter of 2 March 1959) that 

 neither specimen showed evidence of ringworm or sarcoptic 

 mange. The origin of "rub" is still a mystery. 



Population estimates made by Chapman on the basis of 8 yr 

 of tag returns between 1950 and 1957 contained unresolved 

 discrepancies; Chapman (1958:65)" concluded that new 



"Abegglen, C. E., A. Y. Roppel, and F. Wilke. 1958. Alaska I'ur seal inves- 

 tigations, Pribilof Islands. Alaska. Report of field ailiviiies, June-Sepiember 

 1958. Unpubl. rep., 187 p. Northwest and Alaska Fish. Cent., Natl. Mar. 

 Mammal Lab., Natl. Mar. Fish. Serv., NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE., 

 Seattle, WA 981 15. 



"Abegglen, C. E., A. V. Roppel, and F. Wilke. 1959. Alaska fur seal inves- 

 tigations, Pribilof Islands. Alaska. Report of field activities, June-September 



1959. Unpubl. rep., 132 p. Northwest and Alaska Fish. Cent., Nail. Mar. 

 Mammal Lab., Natl. Mar. Fish. Serv., NOAA. 7600 Sand Point Way NE., 

 Seattle, WA 981 15. 



■■•Chapman, D. G. 1958. Population estimates of Pribilof fur seal pups based 

 on 1957 data. In C. E. Abegglen. A. V. Roppel, and F. Wilke, Alaska fur seal 

 investigations, Pribilof Islands. Alaska. Report of field activities, June- Septem- 

 ber 1958, p. 65-82. Unpubl. rep. Northwest and Alaska Fish. Cent.. Natl. Mar. 

 Mammal Lab., Natl. Mar. Fish. Serv., NOAA. 7600 Sand Point Way NE., 

 Seattle. WA 981 15. 



44 



