332 AGRICULTURAL, APPROPRIATION BILL, 1924. 



the American continent. We are constantly oruanlincj against their 

 importation. They are coming in every little while, and when thev 

 come in we switch them off and either have them killed or sent back 

 to where they came from. 



IXVESTIGATION OF REIXUKF.R INDrSTKY IN ALASKA. 



The Chairman. We will now consider the next item, page 442. 



Doctor Nklsox. Those are investigation experiments in connection 

 with reindeer and the protection of the land fur-bearing animals in 

 Alaska. 



The reindeer in Alaska were fii-st introduced in 1892. and U]) to 

 1902 they imported a total of 1,280 animals. There are now 200.000. 

 perhaps, reindeer in Alaska, in addition to 100,000 or so that have 

 iDeen killed — the offspring of that one thousand two hundred and 

 odd. This indicates that conditions in Alaska are extremely favor- 

 able to reindeer growing. They were im])orted for the benefit of 

 the Eskimos, but gradually they have, of late years ]>articularly. 

 drifted to some extent into the hands of white men. So that at 

 the present time two-thirds of the holdings in Alaska belong to the 

 natives and about one-third belong to the white men who are begin- 

 ning to develop the business on a commercial scale and to export the 

 carcasses. 



Up to 1920 nothing had been done in the way of scientific study 

 of the reindeer business in Alaska or of conditions on the range — 

 what the range would support and how' it should be handled. In 

 1920 Congress ^ave an appropriation to the Biological Survey to 

 begin investigations of that character, and I went up to Alaska with 

 some ex])erts and established them at an ex])erimental station on 

 the coast, where they are now conducting investigations. The 

 preliminary results have been published in a bulletin published re- 

 cently, which is the first bulletin of the kind. It contains a com]>re- 

 hensive survey of the reindeer business and ])oints out what is needed 

 to conduct it successfully. The conditions under which the reindeer 

 business was conducted in Alaska were very crude, but they have 

 already begun to take advantage of some of our suggestions and 

 report sur])risingly good results as the outcome. 



We have found that there are at least 120, 000, 000 acres of land in 

 Alaska that are suitable for reindcei- grazing. This area would 

 acconunodate in the neighborhood of 4,000,000 reindeer. These 

 aninnds breed very rapidly. They begin having young when they 

 are only a year old, and at 2 years nearly always have young, and •] 

 they raise a large per cent of calves. 



The meat is of excellent tpuility, but the animals are small. The 

 carcasses of the animals that have been shipped average about 150 

 pounds each. In Alaska there is a large wild caribou, which is 

 another- name for (he wild r<Mndeer. individuals of which are said 

 fi('(|uen(ly to dre.ss by aclual weight fiom .jOO to 100 pt)unds, in <'on- 

 trast witli 150 pounds in the case of these imported reindeer. 



We comph'ted in August a trap corral in McKiidey Park, Alaska, 

 where we |)ropose to capturt' some of these big young bulls and put 

 them with the r«'in<ieei- herds for the pur|)ose of grading them up 



