395 



success, but nevertheless the destructive feather trade continued until 

 it was outlawed at the retail level, and thus the egrets were saved. 



In the case of the Pacific fur seal, the committee has before it one bill 

 that would abandon a proven system of international control in the 

 name of humaneness which the U.S. Government could enforce only 

 in territorial waters. Realizing how the legal and illegal hunters of 

 many nations could move into the North Pacific and resume the 

 slaughter of fur seals at sea, we think it is too great a risk to take. We 

 do, however, think good questions have been raised about the fur seal 

 management program and that these questions must be answered. 

 Some of them have been expressed by Dr. William H. Drury, research 

 director of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and I quote from 

 some recent letters by Dr. Drury to Dr. Elvis J. Stahr, president of 

 the National Audubon Society : 



First biologically : It would be hard to refute the U.S. government justification 

 of a take of immature males. The figures must be t>ased on numbers taken from 

 censuses of an expanding population and annual figures of a population whose 

 annual breeding success and high seas mortality sliould vary naturally within 

 wide limits. The errors in estimates must be large enough so that one could 

 conclude anything one was predisposed to conclude. 



There is a ju.st fied question as to the degree of effort which the Federal Gov- 

 ernment should be making to encourage formation of satellite colonies and even 

 colonies on additional islands as "insurance." No matter how many animals there 

 are on St. Paul, etc., the few colonies which now exist are vulnerable to 

 catastrophes. 



I think it would be well to find out whether the fur seal supervisors are 

 thinking in progressive term.s of just "eullling the surplus" without application of 

 any imagination. 



Second socially : I think the time is ripe to question exploitation of the fur 

 seals. The annual cull has been justified traditionally simply because the animals 

 were there and exploitable, as you point out. Our questioning should be sophisti- 

 cated, however, not restricted to emotional arguments against killing. More 

 colonies of fur seals and more animals to be seen off season in the Pacific is a 

 resource worth cultivating. 



It seems to me that there are more general biological questions. For example, 

 tlie present level of liarvesting of the fur seals .seeans to be based on 

 assumptions that the food supply within the range of the breeding island is a 

 limiting factor of the number of young that will be produced in any given 

 season. This has a considerable amount of logical validity to it, but unfortunately 

 has not been demonstrated to my satisfaction. Furthermore, the Bureau of 

 Commercial Fisheries has not yet identified the size of the original population of 

 the fur seals except some vague indications that suggest the population there 

 may have been several times the size it is now. If so, this contradicts the idea 

 that the present population is exhausting the food supply within reasonable 

 commuting distance of the breeding animals. In addition, I find the present esti- 

 mates of the population very vague and questionable to say the least. It would 

 seem to me we can well make a strong point that the Bureau should have a 

 much more reliable estimate of the present whole population and its various 

 subdivisons on which to base their management techniques. We should see these 

 and have the chance to test their validity. 



If there is evidence, not published in the aflldavits, that the present population 

 is in trouble because of food supply within convenient commuting distance, then 

 an energetic effort should be made to encourage the population to establish new 

 colonies on other islands. I can see very little evidence that the Bureau of Com- 

 merical Fisheries has considered the fact that some fur seals are establishing 

 colonies off the coast of California now and are well known to be expanding 

 and establishing new colonies on several islands in the Southern Hemisphere. 

 The founding of these new colonies argues against the reasoning that the fur 

 seals are already breeding in all the places where they could survive and breed 

 successfully in the north. This point needs further argument, but I want to keep 

 the memo concise. 



