Two haremless bulls in controversy 



THE FUR SEAL 



Bii Frederic A. Lucaa 



In the hall of northern mammals is a small group of the Alaskan fur seal, the species that 

 for many years has been the chief source of our sealskin cloaks. Forty years ago. when we 

 purchased Alaska, the fur seal herds of the Pribilof Islands numbered between three and four 

 millions; to-day, through the effects of pelagic sealing, there are not 1.50,000 fur seals left. 

 No animal has been the source of so much profit to the United States as has Ihe fur seal: 

 none other has cost so many millions as have been expended in efforts to terminate pelagic 

 sealing and preserve the seals. It has been the source of endless international disputes and 

 voluminous diplomatic cnrrespondence. So much has been sairl about the necessity of a 

 total c(>ssation of killing Ijoth on land and sea, that it may be well to call attention to the 

 fact that killing on land is confined to .young males of the bachelor class, whereas ])robably 

 eight out of e\cry ton seals killed at sea are mother seals whose yoimg necessarily starve to 

 death. TIk^ following article states some of the biological facts, from which the reader may 

 draw his own conclusions. Dr. Frederic A. Lucas was a menilier of the Fur Seal Commis- 

 sion of ISOO and 1S97, especially charged with the investigation of the breeding habits of the 

 fur seals and the causes of mortality among them. He has since been a member of the advi- 

 sory board of the Fur Seal Si'rvice. — Editor. 



THE recent treaty between the Uniterl States, Great Britain, Russia 

 and Japan, with a \iew to the suppression of pehi,i>ic seal'ng. is 

 one phase of the eonser\ation movement, the all but too late efTort 

 to preserve somethinji; of our wild life. 



Few animals can be more readily protected than the fur seal, few would 

 yield better results from a purely cash standpoint and few are more in need 

 of protection. For years the herds ha\e been decimated by pelagic sealing 

 with its wasteful slaughter of breeding females and attendant star\ation 

 of their young. 



Maiiy things have stood in the way of protecting the seal, not the least 

 of which is the fact that the high seas are free to all, and that it reciuiri'd a 

 general agreement of imi)ortaiit maritime powers to make protection of any 

 value. That Canada had no fur seal herd, and that the fur seals of Japan 

 were all but exterminated were other factors to i)c reckoned with, for both 



