ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 701 



third as many seals as St. Paul, and the apportionment of the quota 

 between the two islands was made on this basis. This was changed 

 in 1876 to one ninth, but was presently raised to one-fourth and finally 

 lowered to one-fifth, where it remained. Lieutenant Maynard intimates 

 that the cliange to one ninth was made because of the results of Mr. 

 Elliott's estimates. As, however, Mr. Elliott placed the number of 

 seals on St. George at one-eighteenth that on St. Paul, while the pro- 

 portion of the quota for St. George was left at one-ninth, this does not 

 seem to be consistent. The fact that the hauling grounds of St. George 

 continued to yield from one fifth to one-fourth of the quota of killable 

 seals is sufficient ]>roof, if tliere was no other, to condemn Mr. Elliott's 

 estimates. This relation of the quota is borne out by the proportion of 

 seals found by us during the past season, which gave one- fifth as many 

 seals to St. George as to St. Paul. 



ELLIOTT'S 1890 REPORT. 



While we have taken exception in the preceding pages to Mr. Elliott's 

 numerical estimates, it has been a pleasure for us to put on record our 

 appreciation of the general excellence of his vivid portrayal of the life 

 history of the fur seal. It is, however, a matter of great regret to us 

 that we can not ex])ress a similarly favorable opinion regarding any 

 considerable part of his work in the report of 18".-0. 



In this year Mr. Elliott was assigned the duty of investigating the 

 condition of the fur-seal herd. The agents in charge of the islands had 

 become suddenly aware of a great fiilling off in the number of killable 

 seals and were appalled by it. The primary cause of this reduction was 

 plainly to be souglit in the condition of the breeding herd. Since 1883 

 pelagic sealing had been going on on a large scale, involving a heavy 

 destruction of females. This loss was added to the great natural losses 

 to the young, which had kept the rookeries at a virtual equilibrium from 

 1875 to 1883, thedeaths each year during this period from natural causes 

 being about equivalent to the gains. Beginning with the increase in 

 the pelagic catch from and after the" year 1883, the loss of breeding 

 females entailed by pelagic sealing constantly exceeded the annual 

 increment, a steadily diminishing birth rate resulted, and, beginning 

 with 1884 and thereafter, a growing difficulty was felt in filling the 

 annual quota. 



This difficulty was at first overcome by closer killing and afterwards 

 by the taking of younger seals, thus causing a secondary but more con- 

 spicuous shrinkage in the bachelor herd, due to the anticipation each 

 year, to a certain extent, of the quota of the year following, until in the 

 last year of the lease of the Alaska Commercial Conq)any (1889) it was 

 necessary to kill every average sized 2 year-old to secure the full quota 

 of 100,000. The new company in 1890 had to pursue the same policy of 

 ''robbing the cradle and the grave" in attempting to secure its assigned 

 quota of 60,000 skins, of which it was only able to get 21,000. 



In his investigations of 1890 this visible fact of close killing im- 

 pressed Mr. Elliott, and was assumed by him to be the primary cause 

 of the reduction of the herd instead of a commercial iiu'ident arising 

 from it. To this impression he added the theory that the drives them- 

 selves were a source of injury, impairing the virility of the males, an 

 hypothesis without a single fact to sustain it. 



In accordance with these assumptions he proposed, as a remedy for 

 the threatened destruction of the herd, the prohibition of the killing of 

 males for a term of seven years, ranking it with the killing of females 



