160 



FUR-SEAL HEED OF ALASKA. 



breeding seals ])reseut on tluit hauling 

 ground at that time. 



Mr. Elliott. Yes. Then, the next 

 day — right there, tliat is all right to begin 

 with; that is the first day of the driving. 

 The next day you go out and you find 

 another hundred. 



Dr. Merriam. Yes; we might find 

 twice as many as on the first day, or only 

 half as many, as these nonbreeding seals 

 go back and forth in the ocean, wliic.h the 

 old male seals do not. 



Mr. Elliott. You count your second 

 drive of 100 seals. Doctor, and you take 

 another "75 per cent"; how near are you 

 to the fact that you have not killed the 

 seals that you saved the first day? How 

 do you know that you have spared that 

 ' ' 25 per cent " when you killed them again 

 the next day you drove and then again 

 took "75 per cent" of them? 



Dr. Merriam. I would not do all the 

 driving from one rookery. There are a 

 large number of rookeries on the island, 

 which could be driven in succession. 



Mr. Elliott. Of course, you can not do 

 it from one " rooker> . " I did not say you 

 did, but you drive from each and every 

 hauling ground over and over again dur- 

 ing the season — from six to ten or more 

 times. ('Hearing No. 11. p. 697. Mav 4, 

 1912.) 



tiiere are 100 on that given hauling ground 

 they kill 95 of them and allow 5 to go, and 

 that is 5 per cent saved. That point is 

 clear, is it not? Then the 5 that are saved 

 go back to the sea, and they go back to the 

 hauling grounds, perhaps, the same day, 

 or even within a half hour they may return 

 to the hauling grounds from whence they 

 were driven. Then in two or three days 

 the native "drivers" go out there again, 

 and these men drive up another 100, and 

 thev kill tliem right down to 5 again, 

 without knowing how many of that 5 were 

 driven over the second time; so they have 

 counted up as saving "10" when they 

 have not saved " 5 . " They go back again 

 to that hauling ground six or seven times 

 before the killing season is over and drive 

 up 100 each time in the same way, and 

 l)efore the>' get through they do not faintly 

 know how many of that original "5" have 

 been saved. While they theoretically 

 have saved "30," yet they may not have 

 even saved "5 " and no living man knows. 



Dr. EvERMANN. The only answer to 

 that is that it is not true. 



^Ir. Elliott. Why is it not true? 



Dr. EvERMANN. They have never 

 killed up to 95 per cent. 



Mr. Elliott. How do you know? 



Dr. EvERMANN. I do not know it, but 

 I simply have the information from the 

 agents' reports. 



Mr. Elliott. The agents' reports show 

 it is pretty close killing, and that they, 

 too. do not know. I have followed and 

 studied hundreds of seal drives, and I do 

 know what a man can do in fact and what 

 he can not do in the premises. (Hearing 

 No. 14, p. 934, July 25, 1912.) 



II. 



The sivorn statements of Dr. Lconhard Stejneger, who is one of the experts cited to the United 

 States Senate Committee on Conservation of National Resources, January I4, 1911, 

 and House Committee on Expenditures in Department of Commerce and Labor, June 9, 

 1911, by Secretary Charles Naqel. as his authority for killing seals in violation of the 

 laws and regulations, to ivit: 



Mr. Bowers. * * * The advisory board, fur-seal service, consists of the follow- 

 ing: * * * Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, head curator of biology. United States 

 National Museum, for two years resident on the Russian seal islands, member of the 

 Fur Seal Commissions of 1896 and 1897, as a member of which he visited and studied 

 all the fm'-seal rookeries of Alaska, Russia, and Japan. His report on the Russian seal 

 islands is tlie most critical and thoughtful that has been written. * * * (Hearing 

 No. 2, p. 109, June 9, 1911.) 



