FUR-SEAL HEED OF ALASKA. 41 



The essential consideration in the treaty is that the United States shall turn over 

 15 per cent of its land catch to Great Britain and a like percentage to Japan. The 

 original attempt to fix the period of suspension at the full life of the treaty was in effect 

 a repudiation of the treaty, and if carried through would undoubtedly have led to its 

 abrogation. With the treaty out of the way, pelagic sealing would naturally be 

 resumed. The Senate compromise at 10 years was little better. The final period 

 still violates the spirit of the treaty, because the United States can not justify the 

 suspension, even for this period, as necessary to any interest of the herd (p. 5). 



Th's idea of "a repudiation of the treaty" when that "close time" 

 of 10 years was adopted by the Senate, is simply an unfounded and 

 fairly stupid one, when it is known that this treaty when first ratified 

 between Great Britam and the United States, carried a memorandum 

 attached to it, which ordered a "close time" of 10 to 12 years from 

 date of its ratification. Great Britain m 1905. and again in 1908, 

 and agam in 1911, was willmg to have a close tihie for 10 years. 

 Why ? Because it was a wise and, self-evidently, a good measure to 

 adopt. 



In addition to the contingent danger arising from possible dissatisfaction and abro- 

 gation of the treaty, the suspension has a direct and vital relation to the herd. The 

 removal of the surplus males of a herd of polygamous animals is not merely possible, 

 but in tlie case of the fur seals it contributes to their well-being. The fur seal is 

 intensely gregarious. The females are crowded together at the critical period of the 

 birth of the pups in groups, or harems, each in charge of a pugnacious and dominating 

 male. This male is an animal of 500 pounds weight, while the female is an animal of 

 80 pounds, and the young at birth a weak thing of 12 pounds. The bull, in the ordi- 

 nary round of harem discipline, is constantly rushing about and among his cows, while 

 in warding off the attacks of the surrounding idle bulls he is rough and reckless in 

 the extreme. The rookeries were in the season of 1912 at a minimum condition as 

 to crowding and fighting, and yet they suffered a considerable loss of pups suffocated 

 at the moment of birth through the overlying of the mother, some neighbor cow, or 

 the trampling of the bull. This cause of loss was in 1912 about 2 per cent of all born. 

 It is beyond the power of man to eliminate this cause of loss. He can minimize it by 

 keeping down the stock of fighting bulls. To cause an increase of fighting or other 

 source of disturbance upon the rookeries will make this loss mount up in geometric 

 ratio (p. 5). 



This absurd, untruthful, and utterly unfounded description of 

 loss and injury to the herd by fighting bulls is fully laid bare and 

 exposed as such in Exhibits A, antea, and G, postea. It has been the 

 faked story which Dr. Jordan first attem])ted to use during 1910 (in 

 conjunction wdth this man Clark) as a shield for the injurious and 

 illegal close kilhng of all the young males by the lessees since 1896. 

 "They ought to be killed, all they could find," because "they would 

 only grow up and fight," "tear the cows to pieces," and "trample 

 their helpless young to death." Here is his faked story: 



Dr. EvERMANN (reading): 



"Dr. David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University, chairman of the fur- 

 seal commissions of 1896 and 1897, and who, in company with his associates, spent the 

 seasons of those two years on our seal islands and on the Russian islands, visiting 

 everv rookery and every hauling ground and studying the fur seal from every impor- 

 tant point of view. Besides spending several months actually on the islands, he 

 spent many more months in collating and studying the data resulting from his own 

 observations and those of his associates and in a study of the literature of the subject." 



6. If the surplus males are not killed, they not only become valueless for their 

 skins, but they grow up into bulls not needed for breeding purposes, but which never- 

 theless pass on 1,0 the rookeries, where they do great damage to the breeding herd by 

 fighting among themselves for possession of the cows, often tearing the cows to pieces, 

 so injuring them that many of their pups are stillborn, trampling the helpless pupa 

 to death, exhausting their own vitality and virility, and rendering themselves less 

 potent than they would be without such useless struggle— in short, causing infinite 

 trouble and injurv to the rookeries without n single compensating advantage. 



