AN EXPERIMENT IN FUR-SEAL CONSERVATION 



By Barton Warren Evermann 



For a quarter of a century the "fur-seal question" has 

 been one of the most serious problems with which the De- 

 partment of State at Washington has had to deal. So long 

 as the killing of seals was confined to the land on which 

 they haul out during the breeding season there was no 

 difficulty; but when certain people in British Columbia dis- 

 covered that fur-seals could be killed in the open sea in 

 sufficient numbers to make the business very profitable, then 

 trouble began. This was in the early 80's. Pelagic seal- 

 ing, as killing seals in the open sea is called, developed 

 rapidly and it was only a few years until the very existence 

 of the fur-seal herd as a commercial entity was seriously 

 threatened. 



The killing of seals on the islands can be, and always has 

 been, carefully regulated by the Government. In the first 

 place it must be understood that the fur-seal is a polyg- 

 amous animal, like sheep, cattle or domestic poultry. 

 While the sexes are born in approximately equal numbers, 

 one male to every thirty to fifty females is adequate for 

 breeding purposes. The surplus twenty-nine to forty-nine 

 males are not needed and can be killed without in the 

 least endangering the existence of the herd. There is no 

 more reason for refraining from killing each year the sur- 

 plus male seals than there would be in a stockman saving 

 all the rams or roosters on the ranch. It has therefore 

 been the policy of the Government never to kill any female 

 seal but to kill each year the surplus young male or bachelor 

 seals after reserving a sufficient number for breeding 

 purposes. 



In this way the Government was able to conserve the 

 herd at high efficiency and at the same time permit the 

 killing of about 100,000 young male seals each year, yield- 



