114 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



seventeen were well filled with the flesh of the jiiaiit squid; two were gorged with 

 large octopus, while the remaining seven contained pens and beaks of squids, the 

 quantity varying from half a pint to about a quart. 



Professor Dyche was told that there were no fish within 2 or .3 miles of the sea-lion 

 rookeries near his camp, as the sea lions had caught or driven them away. In the 

 face of this statement, he himself caught a dozen rock-cod one morning between 

 shore and the seal rocks, and his boatman, George Carr, an old salmon fisherman, 

 caught plenty of rock-cod weighing from 1 to 8 pounds each within 60 feet of the flat 

 rock where from 1 to 300 sea lions landed each day. The water close to these rocks, 

 where sea lions had lived for ages, proved to be the l)est fishing-ground in the locality. 

 Professor Dyche states further that he landed a number of times on the rocky islands 

 where in places the excrement from the sea lions formed a layer a foot thick. He 

 hunted through this for fish bones and scales, without being able to discover a single 

 one. On the other hand, the tough pens from the backs of the squids were abundant. 



Professor Dyche found the fishermen loud in their denunciation of the sea lions 

 on account of their alleged destruction of salmon, but, although he was on the 

 fishing-grounds continuously for more than three months, the fishermen were nnable 

 to show him a single instance in which a sea lion had killed a salmon. He adds: 

 "You can hardly imagine the surprised look on these fishermen's faces when they saw 

 the great masses of squid meat roll out of the sea lions' stomachs when cut open." 



The fact that sea lions in captivity will eat fish rather than starve has little l)earLng on 

 the question, and the additional fact that salmon in nets are sometimes found bitten 

 off or eaten is by itself no evidence at all, particularly in places where either sharks or 

 otters occur. It is not claimed that sea lions in their native element never eat fish; at 

 the same time the only actual evidence we have on the subject fails utterly to substanti- 

 ate the allegations of the fishermen. On the contrary, all of the twenty-five stomachs 

 of sea lions examined by Professor Dyche contained remains of squids or cuttle-fishes, 

 and not one contained so much as the scale or bone of a fish. And is it not signifi- 

 cant that in former years, when sea lions were much more plentiful than now, salmon 

 also were vastly more abundant? If the fishermen will look into their own habits 

 and customs during the past twenty- five years, it is beUeved that the cause of decrease 

 of the salmon Mill not be difficult to find, and this without charging the decrease 

 to the inoffensive sea lions, whose rookeries constitute one of the greatest attractions 

 to the visitor on the California coast. 



In 1901 the California board of fish coninii.ssioners again brought up 

 the subject and asked that the United States Fish Commission investi- 

 gate it. The Commissioner accordingly addressed the following letter 

 to the chairman of the Light-House Board, under date of June 6, 1901: 



Respectfully adverting to correspondence between the Light-House Board and 

 this Commission regarding the killing of sea lions on Government reser\-ations on 

 the west coast under supervision of the Light-House Board, I have to advise you 

 that this Commission has l^een asked by the board of fish commissioners of the State 

 of California to make an investigation of the food and feeding habits of the sea lions 

 on the Califomian coa.st, and that the Commission is disposed to accede to the 

 request of the State authorities, in order that the question at issue may be definitely 

 settled by competent official authority. 



I have therefore to request that you will cause to be issued the necessary orders to 

 the keepers of light-house reservations, permitting a duly selected scientific assistant 

 of this Commission, with such associates or aids as he may require, to visit the 

 reservations and make the desired investigations, including the killing of a limited 

 number of animals. 



I need hardly assure your board that under the desired permission only the mini- 

 nmm number of sea Hons reciuired for the settlement of the (juestion will be killed 

 by the Commission's agent. 



