ALASKA FUR-SEAL ROOKERIES, 1910. 7 



IDLE BULLS. 



These animals are victims of circumstances. Owing usually to 

 an unfavorable location, they have failed to secure harems, though 

 they are as physically able to control them as any of their class. 

 Furthermore, the term "idle" is a misnomer, for no one who has 

 watched them on the rookeries would ever accuse them of being 

 sluggish. On the other hand, they are aggressive in the extreme 

 and especially during the height of the season engage in frequent 

 quarrels with the harem masters, from whom they usually pilfer a 

 small number of cows before the close of the season. 



It can not well be doubted that an excess of this class of animals 

 is more or less of a menace to the normal, or at all events what appears 

 to be the most successful, type of seal existence. Claims have been 

 made to the effect that for untold ages the seal has fought the battle 

 of life successfully and that in the present time the hand of man is 

 not required to control his destinies. The first part of this statement 

 is undeniably correct, but the last is open to criticism, for it assumes 

 that the seal is to-day leading a normal existence. Unfortunately 

 this is not true, for we know that the number of breeding cows is 

 becoming alarmingly reduced. In the open Pacific the number of 

 captured males and females may be approximately equal, but the 

 Bering Sea catch, as past records show, contains from 70 to 80 per 

 cent of females. Since, on the average, there is 1 male to every 30 

 cows in the harem, there must inevitably result an excess of males, 

 an unnatural state of affairs, and the belief that in cutting down this 

 excess we are conferring a benefit appears to rest on a firm founda- 

 tion. 



This season the number of idle bulls was 221, not so great a number 

 but that they were kept at bay until the disintegration of the harems 

 had commenced, when they usually became the possessors of a small 

 number of cows. 



YOUNG BULLS. 



Young bulls, otherwise known on the islands as " quitters", are 

 usually 6 or 7 years old, and at the approach of man retire. They 

 frequently haul out with the bachelors or form a shifting fringe about 

 the group of breeding seals. In rare cases they controlled harems, 

 usually on the margins of the rookeries, and in a few cases were seen 

 in the act of copulation. 



An accurate count of these animals was not made, unfortunately 

 since a considerable number had hauled out with the bachelors and 

 could not be numbered without interfering with subsequent drives. 

 At the height of the season the number on the rookeries was 184, 

 and at various times 386 in all were included in the drives. Some 

 were doubtless driven more than once, but it seems certain that the 



