American Fisheries Society 223 



that is a problem you see for the nattirahst to handle ; that 

 is one of the problems we expect him to solve, if possible. 



The transfer of the fur seal service to the Bureau of 

 Fisheries brings to the Bureau, of course, a vast amount of 

 new work, not. only a vast amount of legitimate work but 

 during the last few months it has entailed a considerable 

 amount of absolutely unnecessary, absurd work, or rather 

 work that was necessary in order to meet absurd statements 

 made by various persons who, because of only partial 

 knowledge, do nqt approve of the Government's fur seal 

 policy. 



Now the commissioner's hope is to organize the fur seal 

 service and the Alaska salmon service into a unit; into a 

 service which he hopes to call, or thinks of calling, the 

 Alaska Fisheries Service; but the fur seal service, the 

 Alaska salmon service and the steamer Albatross must be 

 considered together, because the Albatross is on the Pacific 

 Coast and needs to do more work in Alaska with these two 

 propositions than anywhere else on the west coast, and 

 would logically be attached to that service. 



One other phase of the question is this : In transferring 

 the fur seals to the Bureau of Fisheries, Congress rather 

 curiously transferred all the other fur animals of Alaska 

 except the brown bear. The brown bear was excepted 

 because it had already been placed with the Biological Survey 

 of the Department of Agriculture ; and we are glad to 

 leave it there. We wish they had all the other bears ; but 

 they are with us now. 



The law as it stands makes it unlawful to kill any fur- 

 bearing animal in Alaska, but it authorizes the Secretary of 

 Commerce and Labor to establish open seasons. The law 

 makes everything closed but authorizes the Secretary of 

 Commerce and Labor to establish open seasons when the 

 various fur-bearing animals may be killed. Bringing the 

 sea otter, beaver, mink, weasel, foxes and black bears under 

 the control of the Bureau of Fisheries rather nonplussed 

 us for a time. Those were new propositions, but we looked 



