ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 709 



breeding bulls. Mr. Elliott, in his report of 1872-1874, reached one 

 valid conclusion, namely, "that no danger of the slightest appreciable 

 degree of injurj^ to the interests of the Government on the seal islands 

 of Alaska exists so long as the present law protecting it and the man- 

 agement executing it continues." This is the only conclusion of his 

 earlier work which he calls in question, and to its undoing his whole 

 report of 1890 is devoted. It is, however, perfectly correct. 



Page 376: It is worth while analyzing the prediction here made that 

 the Pribilof rookeries will be in "still worse condition in 1891" and "for 

 four or five years longer;" that, in fact, it will "take seven years for 

 the fresh young blood to mature and come upon the rookeries" to hold 

 the "demoralized and diminished heids in check on their downward 

 grade." His claim is that the male life already on the rookeries is, for 

 purjjoses of ^'reproduction, quite lifeless, almost impotent, wholly so in 

 the aggregate of cases," and as a result it must be recruited from the 

 birthrate of pups. His plan of doing this is to suspend all killing of 

 males for a period of seven years. According to his own calculation, 

 Mr. Elliott finds ] 2,500 bulls on the rookeries of the two islands for 

 about 400,000 cows, an outside estimate. This is practically the pio- 

 portion which now exists between the sexes, when there are double the 

 number of adult bulls struggling for places on the breeding grounds 

 Ihat can secure harems. According to IVlr. Elliott's own estimates, of 

 Hie 400,000 pups born in ISi 0, one-half, or 200,000, return as yearlings, 

 and three-fourths of the yearlings survive to the age of 3 years, while 

 the losses after that age are insignificant. Of the 150,000 animals thus 

 surviving to the third year, one half, or 75,000, would be males, five 

 times the number needed for the herd of breeding cows in 1890, and he 

 would have this number multiplied by 7, producing more than 500,000 

 bulls, the avowed purpose of this overstocking of the rookeries being 

 their preservation. Such a horde of fighting bulls would endanger th^e 

 existence of the rookeries. 



Page 381: Mr. Elliott gives us here, in parentheses, his estimate of 

 bulls for 1890, without details as to how it was obtained. The total is 

 12,500. We may infer that it was an estimate, and in the frame of mind 

 in which his investigations have been carried out it must be taken as a 

 minimum. There are, then, 12,500 bulls for 400,000 cows: 1 bull to 

 about 33 cows, or just the projmrtion which holds good on the rookeries 

 to-day, when only one half of the able-bodied adult bulls can obtain 

 harems. It is true that Mr. Elliott charges that these bulls are impotent 

 and worthless. The history of subsequent years shows plainly enough 

 that this was not true. The condition of the rookeries in 1890 and 1897 

 shows that no dangerous disproportion between males and females 

 existed in 1890, while the investigations of the past three seasons on 

 south rookery of Bering Island show that 200 cows to 1 bull is by no 

 means an impossible relation. 



In the summary of explanations here given (1) may be passed by as 

 answered in the note above. If Mr. Elliott found an average of 15 

 cows to a bull in 1872, making the necessary allowance for absent 

 females, which he did not make, the real average was 30. The present 

 average is the same. (2) The reputed harem of "50 to even 100 females" 

 here given is at variance with Mr. Elliott's own figures, which are 12,500 

 bulls to about 400,000 cows, an average of about 33. (3) This state- 

 ment is amply refuted by the record in the tabulated killings, as given 

 by Mr. Elliott in his field notes (p. 481 and following). Not all the kill- 

 ings are dealt with, but in those recorded we find 1,175 half bulls 

 rejected. As this class of animals hang about the rear of the rookeries 



