259 



Gross receipts from Contract processing 

 Year sale of sealskins and sales costs 



1961 



1962 



1963 



1964 _ 



1965 



1966 ._ 



1967 



1968 



1969... 



1970 



4. Soviet fur sealskins : 



No Pribilof fur sealskins have been transferred to the Soviet Union. The in- 

 ternational Interim Convention on Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals re- 

 quires 15 percent of the U.S. harvest to be delivered to each, Canada and Japan, 

 respectively. The same requirement is also applied to the U.S.S.R, harvest. 



5. Costs of transportation of the sealskins from the Pribilof Islands to Green- 

 ville, South Carolina : 



Pribilofs to Seattle. Washington, via National Marine Fisheries Service ves- 

 sel : 1969, 10,000; 1970, $10,800; Seattle, Washington, to Greenville, S.C, via 

 rail, 1969, $13,700 ; 1970, $13,200. 



7. Annual financial statement : 



The first financial statement to be submitted under the contract has not been 

 received to date. The Company's Secretary-Treasurer advised us that the Com- 

 pany anticipates availability and transmittal of its financial statement to the 

 Government during the week of February 15, 1971. 



8. Basis of Article 23 : 



Article 23 was incorporated, as a matter of practice, into all contracts issued 

 by the issuing organization, the former Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, as a 

 general provision. The provi.sion is identical to that set forth in the Federal 

 Procurement Regulations (41 OFR 1-7.101-19) for use by Government agencies 

 in fixed price supply contracts entered into by formal advertising and in nego- 

 tiated contracts. It is, as a matter of course, incorporated into most, if not all, 

 Federal Government contracts. The provision has as its apparent statutory source 

 Title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedure, of the United States Code under Chap- 

 ter 24., Contracts, sections 431 through 433. 



9. Population and income of the Pribilof Islands residents : 

 St. Paul Island, 470 ; St. George Island, 161 ; total, 631. 



In 1967, according to a .survey made for us by the University of Alaska, the 

 average income per household was $10,560. We have no later data nor do we 

 have a census breakdown. 



10. Administration cost : 



The cost of administering the Pribilof Islands including the fur seal program 

 is shown on the enclosed table for FY 1970. 



11. Allegations of Friends of Animals, Inc. : 



The meaning is often not clearly understood of statements such as "killing is 

 beneficial to the population," "Killing saves seals from starvation," and a state- 

 ment attributed to former Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Leslie L. Glasgow, 

 that "the harvest is merely a substitute for natural mortality." Obviously, har- 

 vesting does not benefit the individual seal killed, but neither is the harvest detri- 

 mental to the survival of the entire seal population. The above quotes emphasize 

 that harvesting a wild animal crop under an adequate management plan does not 

 lead to decimation of the population. 



Most management plans for fish and wildlife populations, including the plan 

 for fur seals, emphasize the maximum sustainable yield. Maximum sustainable 

 yield is based on a concept that the death rate increases with an increase in the 

 population until at some level mortality is so great that additions to the breeding 

 population decrease or remain constant. At that level the total number of animals 

 also decreases or remains constant. At some lesser population level, however, the 

 maximum number of additions to the harvestable resource of animals occurs and 

 this is the level of maximum sustainable yield. For the fur seal, this level is about 

 three-quarters of the maximum population possible. 



Fur seals are being managed to achieve a population level which will give the 

 maximum yield of skins. In the early 19O0's the population level of fur seals was 

 too low to give a maximum yield of skins so their numbers were allowed to in- 

 crease. The important mortality of fur seals occurs from birth to about age 3 

 years. By the early 1940's the death rate had increased to the extent that addi- 



