402 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
getting a helper, I awakened the pup, which immediately answered 
its mother. She promptly dashed ashore and into waiting hands 
which returned her to her pup. Early sea otter hunters recounted that 
if a pup was taken from its mother she would follow, screaming, after 
the hunting boat. On several occasions at Amchitka I have seen 
mother otters carrying their dead pups for a number of hours. That 
a strong maternal instinct continues until the young is nearly fully 
grown is frequently observed. 
Late one summer afternoon on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians 
I watched a mother with a large pup, probably a yearling, hauled out 
on a rock below my hide. The pup investigated the rocky shelf, then 
went to the water’s edge as if to swim. The mother watched intently 
and just as it appeared about to leave the rock, she rolled forward, 
grasped a hind flipper in her teeth and drew the surprised youngster 
back beside her. 
PAST HISTORY 
Sea otter fur was held in high esteem among Chinese of noble 
birth from early times. The second expedition of Vitus Bering, which 
sailed from Kamchatka in 1741, opened to the fur hunters of Russia, 
the promyshlenniki, the vast fur resources of Alaska. To Bering’s 
starving men, marooned for the winter on the beaches of the island 
now known as Bering Island, sea otter flesh became a primary means 
of sustenance. The rich furs brought home by survivors of this tragic 
adventure soon stimulated others to seek fortunes among foggy, storm- 
beaten Alaska islands. Sea otters, being by nature trusting, were 
rapidly decimated, but the rugged nature of these islands and the 
frequent violent storms offered more natural protection than in milder 
latitudes along the Pacific coast. 
The human deluge, which to this day is swelling the populations 
of Alaska and the northwest coast of the United States, received 
additional impetus in 1779 when the ships of Capt. James Cook 
dropped anchor at Macao after having visited Nootka Sound, Van- 
couver Island. Cook’s crew suddenly discovered that skins which 
they were using as bedclothing and garments, and which they had 
purchased cheaply from the Indians, were worth thousands of dollars. 
Thereafter the soft fur of the sea otter was the objective of many 
of those who explored the coast and islands of the eastern North 
Pacific Ocean and, in 1785, the brig Sea Otter became the first ship 
to engage in the sea otter trade on the Pacific northwest coast. 
Under the direction of white fur hunters, sea otters were merci- 
lessly pursued, sometimes by teams of Indians in cances; in more 
remote areas by white hunters in light skiffs carried to the otter grounds 
in larger ships. On bleak shores men waited for weeks among the 
rocks to shoot any otter that came within rifle range. Others sta- 
