92 • REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 



islands, together with the materials needed in connection with the 

 taking, curing, storing, and shipping of seal and fox skins, were, for 

 the season of 1917, sent to the islands on the steamer Roosevelt. 

 This is the first time that the Bureau has been able to employ its 

 own vessel for this service. 



APPROPRIATIONS FOR SEAL SERVICE. 



Owing to the increased cost of supplies it became necessary to 

 devote a larger part than heretofore of the appromiation of $75,000 

 for the fiscal year 1917 to the Pribilof Islands. During the second 

 half of the fiscal year the Bureau was forced to limit greatly or al- 

 together suspend certain activities of the work pertaining to the 

 protection of the fisheries and the minor fur-bearing animals. Con- 

 gress has made the same appropriation, namely, S75,000, for the 

 entire Alaska service for the fiscal year 1918. In the season of 1917 

 there was a still further increase in the cost of supplies, as was evi- 

 denced by the return of proposals submitted in May, when the ag- 

 gregate amount was found to be approximately $72,000. Steps were, 

 therefore, taken to secure a supplementary appropriation. Inas- 

 much as the Bureau is charged with the support of the natives on the 

 Pribilof Islands, it feels that its fu^st duty is to purchase the needed 

 supplies for that purpose. Unless Congress meets this emergency, 

 the work of the Alaska service m regard to the protection of the 

 fur-bearing animals and fisheries must perforce be so curtailed and 

 limited as to be seriously ineffective.'^ 



CONDITION OF THE SEAL HERD. 



A detailed statement of the condition of the Alaskan seal herd 

 in 1916, with various tables and comparisons with former years, is 

 contained in the report entitled, "Alaska Fisheries and Fur In- 

 dustries in 1916," published in August, 1917 (Bureau of Fisheries 

 document No. 838, 118 pages). The usual complete census, conducted 

 by G. Dallas Hanna of the Bureau's staff, showed 417,281 seals 

 of aU ages in the herd in the summer of 1916, an increase of 14.6 per 

 cent over 1915. Tentative figures of the census of 1917, also under 

 the direction of Mr. Hanna, indicated a total of 468,692 animals of 

 all ages. The estimated number of pups born in the summer of 1917 

 was 128,024, as against 116,977 in 1916. 



These increases m the seal herd resorting to the Pribilof Islands are 

 regarded as entirely satisfactory and such as are to be regularly 

 depended on so long as the present conditions prevail. The recupera- 

 tion of the herd to something like its former proportions within a 

 comparatively few years may confidently be expected. The natural 

 mortaUty among the various classes is now normal; and the only 

 untoward feature of the present situation is that arising from the 

 great preponderance of mature and adolescent male seals as a result 

 of the close-time that has been effective for five years and expired on 

 August 24, 1917. It should be the consistent policy of the_ Bureau, 

 as it is its obvious duty, in the light of the established biological facts 

 and economic demands, to so admmister the seal herd as to over- 

 come the existing disparity of male life and to ultimately bring the 

 herd to a condition approachhig that of a scientifically managed herd 



a Congress has since appropriated an additional sum of $35,000 for the Alaska service for the fiscal year 



