American Fisheries Society 233 



DISCUSSION 



Mr. John E. Gunckel^ Toledo: I would like to ask how high seals 

 can leap or jump. In the city of Toledo in an aquarium we had two 

 seals with, perhaps, the same history of the seals that you so ably 

 described. One night the female seal managed to get out of an en- 

 closure four feet high, over a fence nearly five feet high, and escaped 

 to the river. She made her home at the mouth of the sewer where the 

 carp were plentiful, and was finally caught. She escaped again, got 

 out during the night time, was traced to the river, and got to Maumee 

 Bay; and they will have to await my return to catch her. (Laughter.) 

 It seems as though some one must have lifted the seal out of the 

 aquarium tank. 



Dr. Evermann : Those are not fur seals. They are a different 

 species. They can jump quite high and can climb still higher. In order 

 to keep our seals from getting out of their pool, we had to make the 

 iron work about it curve inwards so they could not get over; they can 

 climb very high and readily. How high they can jump I do not know. 



Dr. C. H. Townsend, New York : We confined seals on the Seal 

 Islands with a wire fence, but they would climb right over it; we could 

 not hold any of them ; they would go over it with the same ease that a 

 boy would. 



What Dr. Evermann had to say about keeping sea animals in fresh 

 water is perfectly true. A couple of years ago we decided that the 

 water of the harbor that we had been putting in the pools containing 

 seals, sea lions, and manatees was too dirty. The animals got parasites ; 

 and so we put them in fresh water. They have been in fresh water ever 

 since, and have been doing just as well and probably better than in salt 

 water. We kept ^ sea-cow in the aquarium in the dirty water of the 

 harbor two years and had the animal die of parasites in the liver. It 

 is quite possible that the animal would have lived much longer if we had 

 put it right into clear, fresh water. But that very foul harbor water 

 will not be used any more with the animals. It is only used now in 

 three or four tanks were it is impossible to put anything else. But if 

 seals and sea lions die hereafter they will at least die in clear water. 



Mr. Kelly Evans, Toronto : It may interest some of the commis- 

 sioners where you have public game domains or preserves to know that 

 the Ontario government has prohibited the taking of the beaver any- 

 where in the province for a period of years. The beaver increased in 

 Algonquin Park to such a point that it was a positive nuisance, and it 

 was recommended to the government by the commissioner of game and 

 fisheries that the government adopt the principle of taking the beaver 

 themselves by the rangers in charge of the park ; that the pelts of these 

 beavers should be cured, marked with the government stamp and sold 

 at public auction. The government adopted the suggestion, and we 

 have already taken the first kill, amounting to 500 skins. It is recom- 

 mended (and I have reason to believe that the government may adopt 

 the recommendation) that this practice be extended to all the other 



