24O ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



101,594 skins was $4,321,141.03, of which $1,010,869.24 went to 

 Great Britain and Japan under the treaties. When first leased the 

 Pribilof herd numbered about 2,000,000 seals, but it was depleted to 

 132,279 in four years, increasing, however, to 581,453 from 1910 to 

 I92O. 2 The world's reported sales of seal skins in 1919-1921 totalled 



8 5 ,i6 4 . 3 



The habit of seals, walruses and their allies, of congregating in 

 large numbers at rookeries, together with their awkwardness on land, 

 make them easy prey of hunters. The killing of females before or just 

 after birth of the young would not permit the herds to maintain their 

 numbers, much less to increase. About 30,000 young seals are re- 

 ported to have starved in 1895 because their mothers were killed. 4 At 

 Stikine River, Alaska, the natives have been in the habit of killing the 

 females just before the pups are born, as the skins and flesh of the 

 unborn pups are especially prized. 5 Many fur seals are destroyed by 

 killer whales, 18 young seals having been taken from one killer stomach 

 and 24 from another. 6 



The Guadalupe fur seal (Arctocephalus townsendi), now practically 

 extinct, was once abundant on the islands off the coasts of California 

 and Lower California. Between 1806 and 1913, 200,000 seals, proba- 

 bly of this species, were killed on the Farallon Islands, according to 

 Evermann, 150,000 between 1806 and 1813, according to O'Melveny. 7 



The seals of Newfoundland also have been relentlessly pursued by 

 shamefully wasteful methods. Formerly the "baby harp seals" were 

 killed by hundreds of thousands annually for their blubber, and the 

 females were killed in the spring, before the birth of the young, but 

 now these seals are killed for their fur, yielding Newfoundland an an- 

 nual revenue, which in 1921 was about $250,000.* It is reported that 

 300,000 seals whelp each year at two points in the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence, and 500,000 off the Straits of Belle Isle. 9 Five Newfoundland 

 steamers in 1900 took 100,000 seals, worth $250,000, mostly harps 



2 Nelson, Scientific Monthly, xvi, 372-373, 1923, citing Kept. U. S. Bureau Fish- 

 eries for 1909, Bower and Aller, Kept. U. S. Bur. Fish, for 1914, pp. 67-74. Steven- 

 son, Rept. U. S. Fish Comm. for 1902, pp. 283-352. 



3 Osborn and Anthony, Journ. Mammalogy, in, 226, 1922; Natural History, xxn, 

 393, 1922. 



4 Laut, The fur trade of America, pp. 125-133, 1921. 



Walker, Rept. U. S. Bureau Fisheries for 1915, pp. 47-51. 



6 Hanna, What becomes of the fur seals, Science, LV, 505-507, 1922. 



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

 ly, xvi, 521-538, 1923. O'Melveny, What the sea otter did for California, The Mas- 

 terkey (California), in, No. 2, pp. 14-18, 1929. 



8 Laut, The fur trade of America, p. 132, 1921. 



"Harriett, Newfoundland seals, Journ. Mammalogy, vni, 207-211, 1927. , 



