CARNIVORA 213 



$50,000; 5000 sold in China in 1785 for $160,000 (at $32 each); 

 200,000 taken by Russians in fifty years ; fifty years ago American fur 

 companies were taking 3000 annually; 2369 reached the market in 

 1891, 202 in 1912, and only 25 reached the St. Louis, New York and 

 London markets in 1920; several rather poor pelts in 1921 brought 

 from $1,700 to $2,ooo. 42 Even up to 1880 skins sold for $80, while in 

 1910 the price had reached $i,7oo. 43 After 1883, when 5680 skins 

 reached the market, production steadily declined, until in 1900 it was 

 only 584, and at a sale in 1901 the average price of the best 145 skins 

 was a little over $400, the average for the whole lot of 409 skins being 

 a little over $3OO. 44 



The southern species (E. I. nereis) was once very numerous on the 

 California and Lower California coasts, especially on the Farallone and 

 Channel Islands, where "they were so abundant in 1812 that they were 

 killed by the boatmen with their oars in passing through the kelp." In 

 1812 the Russian exploration of the region began, and they killed from 

 700 to 800 a week in San Francisco Bay, in five years took 50,000 and 

 thereafter 5000 a year until 1831, the total number killed on these coasts 

 probably having exceeded 200,000, but they are now seldom seen there. 45 

 "According to old Spanish records, 9729 sea otters had been taken on 

 the California coast prior to 1790. The O'Kain expedition in 1803-1804 

 took 1 100 ; the Winship expedition took 5000 in 1805-1806 ; and a party 

 under a man named Campbell took 1230, all on the California coast." 46 

 It was estimated that 18,000 sea otter skins from California and the 

 northwest coast were marketed in China in 1801, and 150,000 were 

 taken from 1806 to 1813, but by 1820 they were no longer abundant. 47 



Of the sea otters Coues says: "Their food, as might be inferred from 

 the flat molar dentition, is almost entirely composed of clams, mussels 

 and sea-urchins. . . . They also undoubtedly eat crabs and the juicy, 

 tender fronds of kelp, or seaweed, and fish." 48 Seton quotes Snow as 



c Laut, The fur trade of America, pp. 113, 116, 1921. See When the sea otter 

 flourished, Forest and Stream, xc, 46, 1920. 



43 California Fish and Game, in, 80, 1917. 



44 Stevenson, Utilization of the skins of aquatic animals, Kept. U. S. Bureau 

 Fisheries for 1902, p. 323. 



46 Evermann, The conservation of the marine life of the Pacific, Scientific Month- 

 ly, xvi, 521-538, 1923. 



46 Evermann, The conservation and proper utilization of our natural resources, 

 Scientific Monthly, xv, 289-312, 1922. 



47 O'Melveny, What the sea otter did for California, The Masterkey, in, No. 2, 

 pp. 14-18, 1929. 



48 Coues, Monograph of the Mustelidae, p. 345, 1877, citing Elliott, The sea otter 

 and its hunting, in Report on the condition of affairs in Alaska, pp. 54-62, 1875. 



