95 



The number to be killed this year, announced by the Commerce in 

 early June, was 40,000. This stimulated us to prepare a table, based on 

 Government data, to show that if 40,000 seals are killed in this summer 

 of 1971, 9,000 would again have to be female. We credit this circula- 

 tion of this table with having spared the lives of females with pups in 

 the breeding rookeries. 



In its publicity. Commerce assures the public that baby and mother 

 seals are not killed, only "surplus bachelor males."' But in this once 

 vast herd, now reduced to a pitiful remnant of its former size, there 

 are, of course, no "surplus" seals. Moreover, mother and baby seals 

 are killed by the tens of thousands. 



Victor Sheffer, the Interior Department biologist who used to super- 

 vise the kill, states in his book, the "Year of the Seal" (p. 108) : "In a 

 recent decade, 250,000 females of breeding age were killed on the 

 Pribilofs." He also notes that their pups inevitably die of starvation. 



In 1968, in the face of a rapidly declining birth rate, the bureaucrats 

 again sent the Aleuts into the breeding rookeries to kill 11,594 females, 

 all of whom had pups, all of whom were pregnant. And then they have 

 the audacity to tell the public that their purpose is to spare seals the 

 suffering of disease and starv^ation. 



The purposes, patently, was to obtain more skins. And, given the 

 fact that 42 bureaucrats are employed year-round in Seattle and 

 another 50 or so full or part-time in Washington, D.C., whose salaries 

 are supposed to be paid from the sale of sealskins, such a sacrifice of the 

 animals for their own welfare should be anticipated. 



We are pleased to submit to the chairman photocopies of the Bureau 

 of the Budget's detailed report showing that Pribilof expenditures 

 exceeded income by over $2 million in 1970. The bureaucrats grow 

 desperate over such a deficit. 



That the bureaucrats' claims to scientific management are pure pub- 

 licity puffery and that the Alaskan seal herd is, as the Russians claim, 

 "seriously depleted," is revealed by the disparities in their own data, 

 quoted below. 



The photocopies of pages from Government reports, noted as 

 exhibits, are appended to the copy of this report given the chairman. 



Keeping in mind that in July of this year 31,847 seals were killed 

 on the Pribilofs, or as the bureaucrats would phrase it, "the maxi- 

 mum 1971 yield was 31,847 skins," prior year's reports state variously : 



"Approximately 50,000 pelts from males and 10,000 from females 

 are taken annually." (Exhibit J, June 1970.) 



"From 1970 to 1967 the herd has provided an average 58,758 male 

 sealskins." (Exhibit K, published April, 1970.) 



The same report (exhibit L) states: "50,000 to 65,000 young males 

 are harvested annually." ( Note males. ) 



The report on the 1968 kill, printed in December 1970, gives data as 

 follows : 



Exhibit N: 44,292 males, ages 2 to 6; 1,333 young males, age unde- 

 termined. 



Exhibit O : 13,335 females (all but 36 of breeding age)— pages 76-78. 



Exhibit P : 698 females taken pelagically, 126 males taken pelagi- 

 cally. 



Exhibit Q : 3,568 seals wounded or killed and lost in pelagic sealing; 

 63,370 total, including pelagic sealing; 58,960 total, killed on Pribilofs 

 (including females) ; 45,625 total, males only, killed on Pribilofs. 



