18983 A New Investigation 



The incoming Secretary, ignoring previous re- 

 ports, now sent up another scientihc commission, 

 selected by the National Academy of Sciences, the 

 Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. These gentlemen were 

 instructed to investigate the whole matter anew, 

 avoiding the bias of all earlier opinions. The men 

 chosen — Professor George H. Parker of Harvard, 

 Wilfred H. Osgood of the Field Museum, a former 

 student of mine, and Edward A. Preble of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture — were wholly competent. 

 Their carefully prepared report agreed in every re- 

 spect with the findings of previous commissions, but 

 Redfield paid no attention to its recommendations. 



I need go no further Into these details. They Vaiue of 

 afford but one more example of the failure of a ^'^^ 

 certain class of officials to take advantage of expert 

 knowledge. The United States employs many 

 scientific men of the first rank, always ready to serve 

 the public interest. And to repeat explicitly: from 

 1891 to the present time, more than a dozen natu- 

 ralists of highest standing, — Merriam, Menden- 

 hall, Evermann, True, Townsend, Stejneger, Lucas, 

 Clark, Hahn, Parker, Osgood, Preble, Hanna, and 

 Heath, — besides several competent younger men, 

 — Greeley, Snodgrass, Kincald, Adams, Farmer, 

 Warren, and Chichester, — sent at intervals to the 



creates turmoil and fighting in the vicinity of the breeding grounds is necessarily 

 fraught with danger to the young. Fighting among the bulls arises from at- 

 tempts by idle bulls to steal cows from their more successful neighbors. In these 

 contests cows are torn and injured and pups trampled. . . ." 



The fur-seal herds have abundant room for extension, and the food suppiy 

 is ample. The only known natural checks to the indefinite extension of the 

 herds lie in the fighting of the males, the possible spread of the hookworm in 

 sandy areas, and in occasional attacks of the Great Killer or Orca, a large, 

 swift, and voracious kind of porpoise. 



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