506 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1428 



1912 20,246 



1913 23,067 



1914 23,312 



1915 25,881 



1916 29,249 



1917 32,006 



1918 35,728 



1919 39,293 



1920 41,881 



1921 44,163 



Total 314,8311 



The great question is, "What has become of 

 this enormous total of 300,000 female seals?" 

 Some are killed by unlawful pelagic sealing. 

 A few bullets and buckshot are found in the 

 carcasses of males almost every year on the 

 killing fields, although no seal can be shot 

 legally. The number so killed, however, must 

 be insignificant and the work sporadic in char- 

 acter up to 1921. While it should not be 

 ignored by any means, it is not sufficiently 

 great to concern us in such a broad analysis 

 of the subject as we are here making. 



Some other females are lawfully killed at 

 sea by Indians under the provisions of the 

 treaty of December 15, 1911. The number so 

 taken in any one year is not excessive, a few 

 hundred at most, yet it is sufficiently great that 

 it should be stopped. The object of the treaty 

 mentioned was to abolish pelagic sealing so as 

 to protect the female seals. Therefore, per- 

 mitting the work at all defeats the main pur- 

 pose of the agreement and the objectionable 

 clause should certainly be amended at the first 

 opportunity. The Indians were given the 

 privilege because they had hunted seals at sea 

 from prehistoric times. There are many ways 

 in which the natives can be recompensed with- 

 out permitting them to destroy the important 

 element of any species of wild life. 



There is no evidence of any loss of seals at 

 sea due to disease or starvation. The animals 

 are always fat and healthy when they leave 

 their island home and also when they return. 



1 It should be explained that in fur seal census 

 computations, while the figures appear exactly as 

 though a precise enumeration had been made, only 

 round numbers are intended to be implied. The 

 possible error in the above computations would 

 be approximately plus or minus five per cent. 



Exceptions to this rule are so rare that they 

 may be entirely ignored. 



There is only one other known method by 

 means of which the herd suffers a loss in the 

 sea. This is the result of the depredations of 

 killer whales. Each spring and fall these 

 "wolves of the sea" come about the Pribilof 

 Islands in schools and have been seen to devour 

 seals in large numbers. I once saw a school 

 capture three seal pups in less than five min- 

 utes. In their eagerness to capture their prey 

 they sometimes "run aground" and of course 

 then die. The stomachs of two which thus 

 came ashore were once examined by Captain 

 Bryant and in them he found 18 and 24 seals, 

 respectively, $2,000 meals each of them. 



That the destruction of seal life about the 

 islands by the killers is very great is incontro- 

 vertible. Whether it continues as both animals 

 migrate southward is unknown. We know with 

 a fair degree of accuracy the direction and dis- 

 tance traveled by the seals but the habits of 

 the animals during the long period of their 

 lives when they are in the water are practically 

 unknown. 



There may be other pelagic enemies besides 

 the killers, but it is doubtful; if so, they are 

 entirely unknown. 



Of course, the males suffer as great a loss 

 as the females and there is some evidence which 

 indicates that it is even greater. As a class the 

 former do not swim so far to the southward, 

 and it is possible that the killers normally re- 

 main in the colder waters. At any rate, we 

 know that 300,000 of them have been lost 

 during the past nine years. If they had been 

 taken commercially and their skins sold for 

 revenue they would have brought the enormous 

 total of $15,000,000, upon the assumption of a 

 value of $50 per skin. But during much of 

 this period they brought $100 each or more. 



Such financial loss to the government can 

 not be passed unheeded. That sum would have 

 paid for all of the scientific investigations, good 

 and bad, which have ever been made of the fur 

 seal. Each year the actual loss amounts to 

 more than $1,000,000. 



It has been urged that a small part of this be 

 used for the study of this new "fur seal ques- 

 tion." Seldom does a scientific investigation 



