OCEANIC MAMMALS 421 



bringing forth their offspring on the rocks, they are disposed to 

 believe that the birth takes place on kelp-beds, in pleasant or 

 not over-rough weather. The female has a single pup [rarely 

 two], born about fifteen inches in length. . . The sea-otter 

 mother sleeps in the water on her back, with her young clasped 

 between her fore-paws." 



The methods employed in taking sea otters Elliott describes 

 as four: Shooting them in the surf at long range with a rifle, 

 and waiting till they drift ashore if the surf is too rough to 

 permit of launching a boat; surrounding an otter by a party 

 of spearers in their boats and awaiting its return to the surface 

 after it becomes exhausted in several dives; clubbing them in 

 winter when they may at times be stealthily approached among 

 rocks and kelp; and using nets 16 to 18 feet long and 6 to 10 

 feet wide, of coarse meshes, spread out on the kelp beds. 

 Frequently several at a time are thus taken, for when enmeshed 

 they seem to make little or no attempt to get free. It is said 

 that this method is preferred by the Japanese, since it permits 

 the release of inferior animals or breeding females. The young, 

 according to Scammon (1874), are met with at all times of the 

 year, so that there appears to 1be no definite breeding season ; 

 the period of gestation is believed to be eight or nine months. 



Writing in 1874, Captain Scammon speaks of the Lower 

 California coasts as the haunt of sea otters and adds that 

 Cerros, San Geronimo, Guadalupe, San Nicolas, and San 

 Miguel Islands were "regarded as choice places to pursue 

 them." Earlier, when California was part of Mexico, the 

 pursuit of sea otters was prohibited by that Government under 

 severe penalty. In recent years bones of the sea otter have 

 been found in Indian shell heaps on Santa Cruz Island and 

 near Monterey (E. M. Fisher, 1930). 



Previous to the purchase of Alaska from Russia, Wrangell 

 had already instituted somewhat more far-sighted methods of 

 making the annual catch, allowing no part of the hunting 

 grounds to be used for two consecutive years, and thus some- 

 what restricting the number killed. From 1842 to 1862 the 

 average catch, including that of the Kurile Islands, was about 

 1,249, and the total for the 20 years was 25,899. The result 

 was to restore the sea-otter population to a slightly better con- 

 dition. But these careful methods were abandoned when 

 Alaska became part of the United States, and the pursuit was 



