12 FUR-SEAL HERD OF ALASKA. 



and during which no killing is done. — only animals present in 1909 which could 

 {Hearinc/ No. 9, pp. 362, 363, Feb. 29, have resulted from this reservation were 

 1912. House Com. Exp. Dept. Com. and the 513 idle and half bulls. Even if we 

 Labor.) assume that they have in the meantime 



replaced the entire stock of breeding bulls, 

 this would account for only 1,900 of them, 

 and the active bulls were for the most 

 part of a distinctly older class. — {Report 

 G. A. Clark to Secretary Nac/el, Sept. SO, 

 1909, p. 847, Appendix A, House Com. Exp. 

 Dept. Com. and Labor, June 24, 1911.) 



Were these regulations continued 1 No. As soon as Mr. Hitchcock 

 was }3romoted to the Postmaster General's office in 1905 a person 

 named E. W. Sims, "solicitor" of the department, was put in charge 

 of the fur-seal business, and then this same Mr. Lembkey was pre- 

 vailed u})on to nullify the "Hitchcock rules," so that in 1906 the 

 lessees secured every young male seal that hauled out, over, and 

 under 1 year of age and upward. 



This close killing was continued on the islands up to the passage of 

 the act of August 24, 1912, which stops it completely for five years. 



And this close killing since 1896, when first ordered, has been done 

 in violation of the regulations forbidding it, up to date, and is re- 

 sponsible for this wreck of the herd as we find it to-day. 



What is the loss which the public Treasury has suffered since 1896 

 by reason of that violation of law and regulations then and since (i. e., 

 reduced to a matter of dollars and cents) ? I answer as follows: 



I. This excessive close killing of the young males has so disturbed 

 the balance of natural order and the system of the breeding rookeries 

 that instead of having a herd of 1,000,000 seals on them to-day we 

 have only 190,555. 



II. Had it not been for the work of the pelagic sealer since 1896 

 to December 15, 1911, the harems on the islands to-day would be at 

 the ratio of 250 to 500 cows (yes, even 1,000) to 1 bull, and that 

 would have fairly destroyed the species by 1907-1909. 



III. Therefore this killing so close and in violation of the regula- 

 tions since 1896 to date has cost us the loss of over 120,000 seals taken 

 in flagrant, criminal trespass by the lessees and in violation of their 

 contract ; but it has also cost us vastly more in the loss of the earning 

 power of this herd, which should have been, and would have been, 

 properly conserved had it not been for the greedy interference of 

 these private interests when foreign governments were approached 

 with negotiations for the elimination of pelagic sealing and all private 

 interests in the killing of seals on land and in the sea. 



IV. The sum totalof loss actually suffered by the public Treasury 

 through this combination between the lessees and our own agents 

 and officials may be summed up fairly as follows, to wit: 



To loss of 120,000 "yearlings," (or "eyeplaster " skins), at $30 .$3, 600, 000 



To loss of annual earnings of a fully restored herd (as it would have been 

 had it not been for interference of lessees in 1890-91), of 4,700,000 seals 

 from 1897 to 1913—16 years' output of 60,000 prime skins annually 48, 000, 000 



Total loss 51, 600, 000 



