eo 



and research connected with the fur seal operation. Any funds remaining go 

 70% to Alaska, and 30% to the Pribilof Fund. Last year there were no net profits, 

 although in earlier times the state of Alaska received up to $1 million from this 

 program in one year. 



There has been in existence since 1911, interrupted only by World War II, a 

 treaty governing the taking of fur seals. This treaty, to which the United States, 

 the USSR, Canada and Japan are signatories, governs the taking of fur seals by 

 these nations. It provides, in effect, that seals may be taken only in their rook- 

 eries on a commercial basis. Since these rookeries are U.S. and Russian, these 

 countries are entitled to the lion's share of the skins. Canada and Japan, which 

 had extensive pelagic sealing operations, have each agreed to forego these in 

 return for a 15% share of the take from both this country's and Russia's opera- 

 tions. The present treaty has been extended imtil 1975, and will terminate in 

 1976 unless further extended. 



Concern has been expressed that the termination of these treaties would mean 

 a return to the old, wasteful methods of pelagic sealing, on a "catch as catch 

 can" basis. If these concerns were to prove correct, it seems likely that the 

 population of the fur seal herd would decline precipitously. While it is possible 

 to point to deficiencies in the current program, it must also be said that current 

 management practices assure that the fur seal herd is in no danger of disap- 

 pearance. 



It appears that the herd is not growing as fast as we would like ; it may even 

 be declining. The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries had previously stated that 

 it was attempting to stabilize the herd at the level of 500,000 pups born each 

 year (see, for example, 1969 Annual Report of Pribilof Sealing Operations, 

 page 1), but estimates are that only around 300,000 pups are currently being 

 produced. It would appear, however, that policies of taking only "excess" males, 

 if not changed because of the short-term advantages of overexploitation, should 

 ultimately bring the herd to a larger level. Whether or not this is large enough 

 is not clear. The annual take of fur seals in the 1970's was roughly 100,000 per 

 year, although this level of killing could not be sustained by the herd at its 

 present size. It also appears that the annual "take" of fur seals has been declin- 

 ing in recent years, from a high in 1955 of 125,000 to just over 30,000 this year. 

 There is, as might be expected, controversy between scientists and others as to 

 how large the herd should be allowed to grow; others argue the question is 

 essentially one of ethics or morality. This issue will certainly surface in the 

 hearings. 



The letter to Members of the Congress from the hunting and conservation 

 groups was accompanied by a document entitled "The Harvest of the Pribilof 

 Fur Seals : A Fact Sheet". This document, with minor changes, is a replica of 

 another with the same name published by the Department of Commerce. While 

 the "facts" in this document are essentially correct, it should be recognized that 

 it was prepared by the government to support a continuation of the status quo 

 and should be read in that light. Other facts with equal relevance, but not sup- 

 porting the same conclusion, were of course not stated. (See iip. 509-515.) 



The annual research program on the fur seal is approximately $250,000. There 

 is virtually no Federally funded research on any other species in the family of 

 eared seals. 



THE EARLESS (OE TRUE) SEALS 



Animals within this classification include the Harbor Seal, the Ringed Seal, 

 the Harp Seal, the Grey (or Atlantic) Seal, the Monk Seal, Ross's Seal, the Sea 

 leopard, the Hooded Seal, and the Sea Elephant. Few of these are endangered ; 

 Interior lists only the Caribbean Monk Seal as endangered (it is probably 

 extinct), and states that the Ribbon and Hawaiian Monk Seals are "rare". 



In this category the animal that has received the greatest public attention 

 is the Canadian Harp Seal. This is the baby seal which is killed by the hundreds 

 of thousands each Spring ; the annual killing for the past few years has been 

 covered by journalists from all over the world. While the Harp seal may not be 

 listed as endangered, it is surely in trouble. The size of the herd has been esti- 

 mated at 1.3 to 1.5 million — roughly the same as the size of the Alaska Fur 

 Seal — yet the number of baby seals killed last year was 240,000 — 6 to 8 times the 

 number of fur seals killed in the Pribilof s. The St. Louis Post Dispatch carried 

 a story on March 25, 1971, which indicated that the chief Canadian biologist 

 for the Harp Seal program had indicated that the 1971 kill should not exceed 

 140,000, but that the official quota set by the Canadian government was 240,000. 



