ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



33 



.IONS (EUMETOPIAS STELLERI) 

 Farallon Islands. California. 



rookeries, from Lower California to the Aleu- 

 tian Islands, which are not mere sea-beaten 

 locks, but entirely accessible breeding places 

 inhabited by great numbers of these animals. 

 It would be possible for a small vessel to visit 

 many of the large rookeries during the breed- 

 ing season and secure great numbers of young. 



The hides of pups are worth more than those 

 of large animals, but they are almost unknown 

 to the leather trade and there is little informa- 

 tion available as to their value. 



The utilization of the sea lion should be a 

 matter of interest to our state fishery officials 

 on the Pacific Coast, who are constantly im- 

 portuned by the commercial fishery interests to 

 have them exterminated. 



The sea lion has no friends among the fish- 

 ermen. While the naturalists have rushed to 

 his relief when threatened with wholesale 

 slaughter, indiscriminate and wasteful killing 

 has never ceased since the 

 great commercial fisheries of 

 the Pacific Coast were de- 

 veloped. British Columbia 

 has recently paid bounties 

 on sea lions, and Oregon 

 and Washington continue to 

 do so. 



The general attitude of 

 salmon packers is indicated 

 fairly well in the following 

 letter from Mr. Roderick L. 

 Macleay of Portland, Ore- 

 gon, to Mr. Madison Grant, 

 of the New York Zoological 

 Societv : 



I have caused men to be equipped with boats, weap- 

 ons, and facilities to destroy the sea lions on the 

 Rogue River Reef, about six miles from our cannery, 

 and every year we kill many hundreds of them. We 

 save the hides and render the fat into oil, and some- 

 times sell the whiskers to Chinamen. One of our 

 large barns, on our ranch, is 200 ft. long and about 

 60 ft. wide, and is painted, entirely, with paint made 

 from sea lion oil. We sell the hides to a firm in 

 Seattle, the average price being about 8c per pound. 

 The hides of the pups are worth about 12c a pound. 

 The pups, when we kill them, in June, are about as 

 large as a setter dog. They are killed with baseball 

 bats, on the rocks, and the mothers are killed at the 

 same time as the pups. In spite of the hilling there 

 appear to be just about as many sea lions as before. 

 * For many years the cannery men have em- 

 ployed parties to kill the sea lions. * * I, myself, 



have shot a great many. * * The great difficulty 



in utilizing the dead body of the sea lion is, that a 

 sea lion shot in the water immediately sinks, and it 

 is difficult to shoot them on the rocks, except in the 

 mating and pupping season, in June, and even then 

 it is difficult to transport their carcasses from the 

 reef to the cannery, where they could be treated as 

 fertilizer. We render the oil, from the carcasses, on 

 tin- rocks, and that is an expensive thing to do, be- 

 cause the fuel must be taken out there, together with 

 water and provisions for the men, and in the event 

 of a storm coming up, the men are often marooned 

 on the reef for a long time. It is really good spurt 

 to shoot these animals. 



To quote again from the Bulletin: 

 "If the resources latent in the herds of sea 

 lions which appear to some undetermined extent 

 to be injurious to the salmon fishery, can be 

 developed, the whole situation will change rap- 

 idly. When the sea lion becomes the basis of 

 a fishery, in which the leather, oil and guano 

 trades are interested, its conservation will be 

 considered for commercial reasons. At present 

 seal oil and leather are derived chiefly from the 

 hair seals of the North Atlantic region. The 

 sea lion of the North Pacific is available for 

 legitimate exploitation." 



SKA I. ION ROCK, un- 

 it- numerous rocky islets al 

 inhabited by sea li 



■ 2 



EREY. CALIF. 

 west coast of North America 

 ZaJophus californiawus . 



