344 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



have replaced the slow sailing vessels. Airplanes, equipped with wire- 

 kss apparatus, are used in hunting the whales and in reporting them 

 to the ships. Electrical harpoons are used to make the killing of the 

 whales more certain. A United Press dispatch of May 17, 1930, re- 

 ported that the fleet of whaling vessels and floating refineries then re- 

 turning from the South Seas were bringing "the largest cargoes of 

 sperm oil and by-products ever loaded, one vessel containing 62,000 

 barrels and another 37,000 barrels. The necessity of conservation of 

 whales is so keenly felt by students of the situation that, under the aus- 

 pices of the American Society of Mammalogists, a Council for the Con- 

 servation of Whales has been organized. Never having been as abun- 

 dant as most other mammals, and not breeding prolifically, having only 

 one young at a time, whales are "in peculiar danger of extermination 

 under modern destructive and systematic methods, if unrestricted." 11 A 

 movement is now on foot to obtain through the League of Nations, in- 

 ternational regulation of whaling in order to prevent the extinction of 

 whales, 12 and Norway has taken an enlightened and advanced stand 

 on the subject by the adoption of legislation for the regulation of whal- 

 ing and the preservation of whales from extinction. 13 



Normally other whales constituted the chief food of the killer whales 

 or orcas (Orcinus orca), but since the supply of the other whales has 

 been so depleted, the killers have become the chief non-human enemies 

 of seals. 14 "Each spring and fall these 'wolves of the sea' come about 

 the Pribilof Islands in schools, and have been seen to devour seals in 

 large numbers. I once saw a school capture three seal pups in less than 

 five minutes. In their eagerness to capture their prey they sometimes 

 'run aground' and of course they then die. The stomachs of two which 

 thus came ashore were once examined by Captain Bryant and in them 

 he found 18 and 24 seals respectively $2000 meals in each of them." 15 



The orca is also "a great enemy of the salmon, and it may be seen 

 in numbers at the mouths of salmon rivers during the salmon season 

 destroying what doubtless amounts to tons of this most valuable food 

 fish. . . . Roy C. Andrews, in his first monograph of the Pacific Cetacea 

 (Memoirs of American Museum, New series, Vol. i Part v) has 



11 Prince, The whaling industry and the Cetacea of Canada, 1906. 



12 Natural History, xxix, 445, 1929. 



13 Norway to save whales, Science News Letter, Nov. 9, 1929, p. 288. Natural His- 

 tory, xxx, 667, 1930, quoting letter from A. Brazier Howell to the Council for the 

 Conservation of Whales. 



14 Hanna, Rare mammals of the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, Journ. Mammalogy, 

 iv, 209-220, 1923. 



15 Hanna, What becomes of the fur seals, Science, LV, 506, 1922. 



