Figure 10.- -Bags of sea lion meat in hold for freezing. 



Early in the season it was fovind 

 that two to three times as much meat 

 could be obtained from male sea lions 

 as from females for about the same 

 expenditure of time. As a result, far 

 more males than females were killed, 

 452 males and only 12 females being 

 ultimately processed. 



Hides were saved and frozen on 

 two occasions. The raw hides were 

 generally poor in quality because of 

 wounds and scars from fighting. Only 

 20 hides (40 sections) were saved. 

 Four whole skinned carcasses were 

 also saved and frozen. 



Proximate Analysis of Ground Sea 

 Lion Meat 



Samples of ground sea lion meat 

 were collected at various times and 

 placed in cold storage for later use 

 in determining the proximate analysis 

 of the meat. The samples were col- 

 lected during the packaging operations 

 by taking small amounts of the ground 

 meat at random as it passed from the 

 hopper into the polyethylene bags used 



for packaging. Three 5 -pound samples 

 were collected whenever sampling was 

 done. 



The proximate analyses were com- 

 pleted by the Ketchikan Technological 

 Laboratory, Bureau of Commercial 

 Fisheries, Ketchikan, Alaska. Dupli- 

 cate determinations were made of each 

 5 -pound sample. 



The results of the analyses are 

 presented in table 2. The ground sea 

 lion meat was quite uniform in com- 

 position. The moisture content of the 

 meat ranged from 71.6 to 75.5 percent 

 and averaged 73.6 percent. The oil 

 content ranged from 3.4 to 7.7 per- 

 cent and averaged 5.0 percent. The 

 protein content ranged from 18.4 to 

 21.8 percent and averaged 20.4 percent. 

 The ash content ranged from 1.0 to 

 1.3 percent and averaged 1.1 percent. 

 These values do not include the sample 

 taken on June 11, as it was composed 

 of shoulder meat only. The shoulders 

 were removed from animals killed on 

 June 7 and 8. They were held in re- 

 frigerated sea water at 32° F. until 



10 



