180 



FUR-SEAL HERD OF ALASKA. 



has seen the fur-seal herd, has made a 

 study of the various problems involved in 

 its proper management, and they are 

 unanimously agreed on the following 

 propositions; 



5. The surplus males should be killed 

 before they reach the age of 5 years, be- 

 cause when they have attained that age 

 their skins become relatively of little 

 value. 



6. If the surplus males are not killed 

 they not only become valueless for their 

 skins, but they grow up into bulls not 

 needed for breeding purposes, but which 

 nevertheless pass on to the rookeries, 

 where they do great damage to the breed- 

 ing herd by fighting among themselves 

 for possession of the cows, often tearing 

 the cows to pieces, so injuring them that 

 many of their pups are still-born, tramp- 

 ling the helpless pups to death, exhaust- 

 ing their own vitality and virility, and 

 rendering themselves less potent than 

 they would be without such useless 

 struggle — in short, causing infinite trouble 

 and injury to the rookeries without a 

 single compensating advantage. 



Mr. McGuiRE. Does that involve the 

 conclusion of anyone else? Are those 

 conclusions of your own based 



Dr. EvERMANN (interi^osing) . No; those 

 are the conclusions of these twenty-odd 

 people, whose names I have read. Now, 

 on the other side, against those 22, we will 

 place Mr. Elliott, and Mr. Elliott alone. 

 (Hearing No. 10, pp. 520, 521, Apr. 24, 

 1912.) 



Evermanii swears a salted seal- 

 skin shrinks 6 inches from its 

 green length. 



Mr. McGuiRE. I would like a little 

 more light with reference to this first skin. 

 The seal, as I understand it, measured 43^ 

 inches. 



Dr. EvERMANN. Yes. 



Mr. McGuiRE. Those are your figures? 



Dr. EvERMANN. Yes, sir. 



Mr. McGuiRE. Those are the official 

 measurements made by the agents of the 

 Government? 



Dr. EvERMANN. Yes, sir. 



Mr. McGuiRE. The skin now, not when 

 it was taken from the seal, but now, in a 

 salted condition, measures 34i inches. 

 Am I right about that? 



Dr. EvERMANN. Yes, sir. 



Mr. McGuiRE. Now, you asked Mr. 

 Elliott to state from those measurements 

 the age of that seal. 



Dr. EvERMANN. Yes, sir. 



Mr. McGuiRE. And he, as he stated, 

 taking Lampson &. Co.'s figures as a basis, 

 stated that it was a yearling? . 



seals are being killed in the water. Cessa- 

 tion of killing on land means encourage- 

 ment to pelagic sealing. Should pelagic 

 or sea killing be abolished, it might be 

 well to have a closed season on land as 

 well as to allow the herd to recuperate." 



The Chairman. Who says this? 



Mr. Elliott. The Bureau of Fisheries, 

 the advisory board, and the whole scien- 

 tific aggregation — "a closed season to. 

 allow the herd to recuperate," whereas 

 they now claim there will be "trampled 

 pups" and "torn females" if they are 

 allowed "to recuperate" during "a closed 

 season." These men have conjured up 

 that story, and it is faked. It is not 

 published in any official document; no 

 man, from Dr. Jordan down to the smallest 

 one of his associates, has published such 

 a statement in all of their official reports 

 up to 1909. It is only recently, in a com- 

 munication from the Bureau of Fisheries 

 to the Senate, that they now say, as 

 "scientists," if these animals are allowed 

 to grow up there in a closed season they 

 will go onto the rookeries and "fight and 

 tear the females to pieces and trample the 

 young to death." 



The Chairman. Well, we have had 

 that before. 



Mr. Elliott. You have never had this 

 unwitting self-confession of utter insin- 

 cerity before; this is the first you have 

 had it, so confessed by them, brought to 

 your attention. (Hearing No. 14, pp. 

 970, 971, July 29, 1912.) 



But in a sworn deposition nine 

 native sealers say that properly- 

 salted sealskins do not shrink un- 

 der the green lengths. 



St. Paul Island, Alaska, 



Town Hall, July U, 1913. 



Question. Did you drive and kill seals 

 last summer? 



Answer. Yes. 



Question. How large were they? 



Answer. We killed them by ages as we 

 killed them before. Mr. Lembkey was 

 the Government agent and Mr. G. A. 

 Clark was counting the seals. When we 

 were salting skins last year, Mr. Clark did 

 not allow us to stretch the skins as we 

 always have done and do when spreading: 

 them in the trench as we salt them. We 

 stretch them out about 2 or 3 inches as we 

 spread them, then put salt on them, and 

 then they shrink back into their natural 

 shape. (Native sealers' deposition to 

 Agents H. Com. Exp. Dept. Com. and 

 Labor, July 24, 1913, pp. 93-95; Rep't 

 said agents, Aug. 31, 1913.) 



Mr. Lembkey. I have attempted to 

 state that in measuring a green skin it is 



