Marcu 1, 1912] 
islands to-day is attributable to our consist- 
ently practised rule of keeping down the 
hordes of dangerous males on land, while 
pelagic sealers were destroying the female 
stock. i 
The Bureau of Fisheries should not be 
hampered in carrying out its arrangements 
for a more rapid increase of the herd than na- 
ture unaided can effect. 
Great Britain, Japan and Russia are to 
profit by the cessation of pelagic sealing, and 
ill-advised amendments would render the 
treaty ineffective, which would be deplorable. 
A naturalist and a member of the fur-seal in- 
vestigation commission of 1896-97 for Great 
Britain, now writes me that 
There is no doubt that fighting bulls have caused 
incalculable injury to the seal rookeries, and judi- 
cious killing of the males should be carried on 
from the date that there is known to be more than 
a sufficient supply for breeding purposes. There is 
no doubt that with proper management an in- 
creasing number of the surplus males may be killed 
every year with great advantage to the rookeries. 
This is talk from a man who worked with 
us for several seasons on the Pribilofs. 
Are the dozen or more naturalists who have 
devoted many seasons to studying the fur seal 
on the Pribilofs, and have long worked for the 
cessation of pelagic sealing, to be deprived in 
the end, of the opportunity to put into prac- 
tise what they believe to be a rational system 
of fur-seal farming. If congress should be 
persuaded to let sentimentalists dictate the 
policy to be pursued on the national seal 
farm, it would mean a very slow. rehabilitation 
of the seal herd. We can not afford to ignore 
what has been learned about the fur seal by 
the patient investigations of the past twenty 
years, and take a step backward. 
Last November I had some correspondence 
with a member of the house of representatives 
who was taking the agitation of the Campfire 
Club against the killing of surplus male seals 
very seriously. J quote the following from a 
letter I wrote to him at that time: 
In order to prevent annual loss of new-born 
young we must prevent the flooding of the breed- 
SCIENCE 
335 
ing grounds by big males. The logical way to do 
this is to market a large proportion of the three- 
year-olds, as we always have done, and thus pre- 
vent them from growing up into valueless but 
dangerous and destructive supernumeraries. 
I take exception to the line in your letter ‘‘un- 
less the herd is further depleted by the Bureau of 
Fisheries.’? The herd is not to be ‘‘depleted,’’ 
as the females are already saved for fifteen years 
by the cessation of pelagic sealing, but the polyg- 
amous male part of the herd must be depleted (to 
quote your word again) if you propose to mature 
all your annual crop of infant seals. Nature will 
do the depleting if you don’t, and half the loss 
will be female pups. 
Surplus bull seals are of no more use than sur- 
plus rams or roosters. By saving them you will 
lose, in fifteen years, not less than $15,000,000 
of revenue. 
The present revenue from the islands is over 
$400,000 a year, which in fifteen years would 
amount to $6,000,000, without any increase of 
females. But the females will increase, and the 
loss of revenue will exceed $15,000,000 in fifteen 
years closed season, and you will lose an important 
percentage of pups besides. 
This is not the first time I have endeavored to 
prevent well-meaning congressmen from being de- 
ceived by the misrepresentations which have been 
poured upon them for many years. The mischief- 
maker referred to has bobbed up every other year 
for the past eighteen years and has been dis- 
credited every time. I hope you will look up his 
record as just published in H. R. Doce. 93, 62d 
Congress, 1st Session, pp. 1153-62. 
The member of the house to whom I sent 
this letter has at last presented an amend- 
ment to the State Department bill in which 
he proposes to limit the killing of male seals 
to 5,000 a year for five years, 7,500 a year for 
the following five years and 10,000 annually 
for five years after that. At the end of fif- 
teen years new regulations to be adopted. 
Now that is better. The gentleman has 
evidently been thinking it over. We shouldn’t 
probably kill much closer if allowed to have 
our own way. Perhaps by the time the treaty 
bill reaches the senate, congress will decide 
that the Bureau of Fisheries is able to handle 
the seal fishery safely for the seal herd and 
for the government. 
