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Hopkins Marine Station, 

 Pacific Grove, Calif., September 2Jf, 1911. 

 Hon. Glenn M. Andeeson, 

 House Office Building, 

 Washington, D.C. 



Dear Mr. Anderson : Many thanks for your letter of 16 September. As you 

 remarked, I commended acting Governor Glenn Anderson for signing into law in 

 1959 a bill which quadrupled in size, the reserve of the southern sea otter. Men- 

 tion of this expansion appears on page 526 of the October 1971 issue of National 

 Geographic. 



It is my understanding that something has happened to the Pribilof fur seal 

 population this season which the wildlife managers are unable to account for, 

 and there has been a great drop in the Pribilof fur seal population. 



Wildlife managers are employed by our Fish and Wildlife Service and by State 

 departments of game and fish. These men are influenced or their superiors are 

 influenced by the commercial and sports interests and often their research is 

 skewed. Our California department of fish and game is supported entirely by 

 sport and commercial license revenues. No conservation money, no general funds 

 are given to them at all, so the wildlife managers are unfortunately politically 

 motivated or influenced because of the nature of their support. 



H.R. 10420 which provides that the fate of all marine mammals shall be de- 

 cided by three commissioners "Knowledgeable in . . . resource management" is 

 therefore disturbing as is the fact that they are charged with managing all 

 marine mammals ". . . on an optimum sustained yield basis." The commissioners 

 should be knowledgeable in marine ecology and marine mammalogy, not resource 

 exploitation. 



Also, the provision in H.R. 10420 which permits ". . . any marine mammal (to 

 be captured) for public display or educational purposes . . ." should be qualified 

 to prohibit their display in all zoos and shows other than the major facilities of 

 the world which employ marine mammal veterinarians and have proper accom- 

 modations for these unfortunate marine mammals. 



The world's populations of marine mammals are in jeopardy from : over ex- 

 ploitation ; accidental man-caused traumatic death ; legal and illegal cropping to 

 prevent resource conflicts ; larger and more numerous oil spills ; the Cannikin 

 blast on Amchitka ; and the increasing levels of cumulative polychlorinated 

 biphenyls, heavy metals, and chlorinated hydrocarbons in their tissues. 



Because of these problems and our fear that devastating reproductive failure, 

 such as some bird species are experiencing, may next be recognized in marine 

 mammal populations, legislation to promote the management of marine mam- 

 mals ". . . on an optimum sustained yield basis . . ." is in error. 



Today's hard pressed remnants of our once healthy marine mammal popula- 

 tions should be given complete protection until the biological effects of increas- 

 ing levels of cumulative poisons can be determined. 

 Yours very truly, 



JuDSON E. Vandevere. 



(The following column on the matters raised by Mr. Vandevere 

 was received after the close of those hearings. For the information of 

 those concerned, the material follows :) 



Our Environment — The Sea Lions' Warning 

 (By Stewart Udall and Jeff Stansbury) 



On California's rugged channel islands, we Americans may be entering the 

 saddest phase of our long love-hate affair with pesticides. Scientists have dis- 

 covered a stunningly high correlation between levels of DDT in the female sea 

 lions that inhabit the islands and the alarming rate at which they are now abort- 

 ing their pups. 



This discovery is so recent that the backup studies will not be published for 

 several weeks. But if the link between DDT and abortions is sustained, it will 

 be the flrst time it has ever been documented in a wild population of mammals — 

 the biological order to which man himself belongs. 



