LETTERS OF TRANSMITTAL." 



Department of Commerce, 



Office of the Secretary, 

 Washington, February 17, 1915. 



My Dear Senator Fletcher: I transmit herewith a report of Wilfred H. Osgood, 

 Edward A. Preble, and George H. Parker, scientific assistants of the Bureau of Fisheries, 

 on the fur seals and other life on the Pribilof Islands in 1914, and request that you 

 obtain the consent of the Senate to have the report printed as a congressional document. 



When the present Administration took charge it found in full force and vigor the 

 existing law providing for a closed season for the seal herd belonging to the United 

 States on the Pribilof Islands. This law was approved August 24, 191 2, effective imme- 

 diately, and will expire b-y its own limitation August 24, 191 7. 



The Department has felt that it had two duties in this important matter. The 

 first was to enforce the law in letter and in spirit, and this has been done. The second 

 was to ascertain from unprejudiced and dispassionate sources the effects of the law 

 and to inform Congress about them as fully as -possible. This is now done. 



In view of the sharp controversy that has existed on the subject of the fur-seal 

 herd it was deemed necessary that the persons selected by the Bureau of Fisheries as 

 scientific assistants to study this problem should be persons who were free from all pre- 

 vious connection with the subject, but who were qualified by training and experience to 

 determine and present the facts. It was required also that they should be severally 

 qualified to carry on as separate individuals the particular lines of scientific study 

 necessary to a full understanding of the problem. 



Under these circumstances the president of the National Academy of Sciences, the 

 Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and the Secretary of Agriculture were requested 

 to make nominations of persons who might be temporarily £mployed for the purpose. 

 The National Academy of Sciences nominated Prof. George H. Parker, of Harvard 

 University, Cambridge, Mass. ; the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution nominated 

 Mr. Wilfred H. Osgood, of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, 111.; and the 

 Secretary of Agriculture nominated Mr. Edward A. Preble, of the Bureau of Biological 

 Survey, Department of Agriculture. The three persons named were selected by the 

 Department of Commerce and employed by the Bureau of Fisheries as temporary 

 scientific assistants, and were instructed to proceed to the Pribilof Islands, there to 

 ascertain the facts and to submit them to the Department for transmission to Congress. 

 Full details are found in the attached report. 



As Great Britain, through the Dominion of Canada, and Japan are financially inter- 

 ested in the American seal herd under the terms of the treaty abolishing pelagic sealing, 

 these countries also of their own motion arranged to send representatives to the Pribilof 

 Islands in 1914, and two experts from Canada and one from Japan visited the islands 

 while our own inquiry was progressing. The facts concerning this matter appear in 

 full in the report. 



This report was originally printed as Senate Document No. 980, 63d Congress, 3d session. 



