FUR-SEAL HEED OF ALASKA. 13 



This Elliott figure of about 1,000,000 seals for 1897, as against 

 376,000 which Jordan declared to be the "first accurate census," was 

 really the correct total for that year; there must have been at least as 

 many seals alive then, or it would have been utterly impossible to 

 find 190,950 of them aUve in 1913, as were found by Elliott and 

 Gallagher during their survey made July 10-20, 1913. 



Those Jordan commission census figures, w^hich have been annually 

 published officially since 1896 by the Departments of the Treasury 

 and of Commerce and Labor, have all been predicated on these 

 erroneous figures of 1897, which Dr. Jordan and his associates have 

 steadily insisted were accurate and not misleading. 



There is another safient fact brought out by this 1913 census of 

 Elliott and Gallagher. There is an entire absence of idle or surplus 

 breeding bulls; they have been completely eliminated by this close 

 killing and illegal taking of them on the islands. 



Even that callous officiaUsm of the Bureau of Fisheries was frank 

 to make the following statement to the committee February 29, 1912, 

 when questioned closely about the killing of young male seals under 

 its direction: 



[Hearing No. 9, Feb. 29, [1913, pp. [368, 369, House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of 



Commerce and Labor.] 



Mr. Lembkey. It might be claimed that the size of the herd of idle bulls is very- 

 small, and that therefore not enough male seals escape the killing grounds to main- 

 tain an ideally healthy relation between breeding males and females. It is true 

 that the number of idle bulls is small. 



In a highly polygamous species, such as the committee understands the fur seal 

 to be, no injury can be wrought to the species from the killing of the young non- 

 breeders, unless that killing became so drastic as to prevent the survival of enough 

 males to properly reproduce the race. Such surplus males as are not required for 

 breeding purposes are as useless zoologically as if they did not exist. Unless, there- 

 fore, it can be proven that the killing on the Pribilofs has resulted in the culling of 

 males so closely that not enough bulls were at all times present to properly fertilize 

 the females, it assuredly can not be claimed that killing of these surplus young males 

 does injure or ever has injured the species. 



The absence of a sufficient number of males would become apparent through any- 

 one or both of the two following means, namely: 



1. The absence of idle bulls on the breeding rookeries. 



2. The presence on the rookeries of adtilt females without young. 



The presence or absence of idle bulls on the rookeries I regard as the most conclusive 

 test to be applied in determining whether or not a sufficiency of adult males is present. 

 Given a surplus of bulls, or more than enough to provide all the cows with consorts, 

 we can be fully assured that there are enough bulls present for breeding purposes, or, 

 as David Harum says, " A little too much is just right." On the other hand, if there 

 are no idle bulls present, it is impossible to ascertain whether enough males are on 

 hand to insure the impregnation of all the females. But we can be well assured of 

 that fact in the face of a number of idle and active bulls. It is a significant fact that, 

 in the whole mass of evidence presented to this committee to prove injury to the herd 

 through land killing, nothing has been laid before it to show any scarcity of bulls, 

 nor, so far as I know, has the subject been mentioned. No allegation of that character 

 has been made, for the very sufficient reason that no evidence of that nature exists. 

 At all times in the history of the seals have idle bulls been present, sometimes more 

 than at others, but always a surplus. Until the critics can successfully allege an 

 absence of surplus male life, their strictures upon land killing must lack value. Under 

 present regulations, which require the exemption from killing of many choice males 

 each year, an elimination of the idle bull class can not occur. ^ if t . ^ 



That the "idle bulls" had completely disappeared from many of 

 the breeding grounds by July 10-20, last, was freely admitted by the 

 agents of the United States Bureau of Fisheries who accompanied 



