510 



their mysterious homing instinct draws them back across the ocean to the same 

 rocky nursery isles. 



The adult male, or bull, may weigh 500 iwunds or more and the female about 

 100 pounds. Harems are comiK>sed of one bull and as many as 100 females, 

 although the average harem has about 40 females. The pups are born in the early 

 simimer and weigh about 10 iwunds at birth. By the time they depart for the 

 sea in the late fall, the pups may weigh 30 i>ounds or more. ^ 



The seal is a commercially valuable animal. Its furs are prized for coats ; the 

 meat is consumed both by humans and by animals. The annual fur seal har\-est 

 on the Pribliof Islands is virtually the sole source of gainful work for the 600 

 Aleuts who live in its two communities. 



The seal herd of the Pribilofs today is thriving, its number estimated at IV3 

 million animals. Its return from a dangerously low level of 200,000 in 1911 is a 

 historic story in the annals of man's effort to conserve wildlife. 



That story began when the indiscriminate slaughter of northern fur seals 

 on the high seas was ended. 



In the 18th century, the seals' rich fur made them targets of intensive hunt- 

 ing in the Northern Hemisphere. 



The Russians discovered the Pribilof Islands in 1786. In the ensuing years 

 Russian hunters reportedly took 2.5 million seal pelts. Initially, har\'esting was 

 uncontrolled, breeding females were unprotected and the Pribilof herds were 

 reduced to remnants. In 1834. when the seals had been almost annihilated, the 

 Russians stopped killing females and the herd began to increase. By 1867, when 

 the U.S. purchased Alaska, (including the Pribilofs) the Pribilof herd had 

 recovered to the point that it sustained an annual harvest of 100,000 males for 

 many years. 



The United States began its jurisdiction by permitting a number of independent 

 companies to operate. In the first season 300,000 skins were taken. To protect 

 the fur seals. Congress in 1869 set aside the Pribilofs as a special reservation. 

 During the next 20 years, sealing on the Pribilofs was conducted under a leasing 

 arrangement, with some 2 million sealskins taken. A second 20-year lease produced 

 only 343,000 skins, and in 1910 the Federal Government assumed direct manage- 

 ment of the approximately 200.000 fur seals that survived. 



During this 40-year period, killing at sea had continued. American. Canadian, 

 and Japanese sealers had shot and speared fur seals from ships. They could 

 not tell the sex or age of the animals, many of which were lost through wound- 

 ing or sinking. When a nursing mother was killed it often meant slow starva- 

 tion for her pup. 



From 1879 to 1909, almost one million fur seals were taken at sea. No one 

 knows how many more were wasted. 



The open sea killing was halted by international agreement in 1911, when 

 the United States, Great Britain. Japan, and Russia concluded a convention 

 for the protection of the North Pacific fur seal. In exchange for the ban on 

 pelagic sealing, the United States and the Soviet Union, under the agreement, 

 provide Japan and Canada each with 15 percent of the harvest from the 

 Pribilofs and 15 percent of the harvest from those islands under jurisdiction 

 of the Soviet Union. 



In addition to the conservation of the seal herd made possible by this agree- 

 ment, there is now an economic gain for the State of Alaska, which by the 

 Alaska Statehood Act obtains 70 percent of the net proceeds from the sale 

 of Alaska sealskins. 



The majority of .sealskins are presently utilized by the European market. A 

 ban placed on the importation of seal pelts into the United States would have 

 little, if any, effect on world seal harvests. 



In the United States, the Ful Seal Act of 1966 charged the Secretary of the 

 Interior with management of the fur seals. This responsibility was transferred 

 to the Secretary of Commerce on Oct. 3. 1970. The National Oceanic and At- 

 mospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service supervises the 

 harvest of an average 50.000 fur seals each summer on the Pribilof Islands. 



There are now seal rookeries under U.S. jurisdiction on Alaska's Pribilof 

 Islands of St. Paul and St. George in the Bering Sea. on Robben Island, and 

 on the Kurile Islands in the Sea of Okhotsk. There is .substantial intermixing 

 between the herds of the eastern and western Pacific Ocean. 



The harvest is restricted largely to 3- and 4-year-old bachelor males that 

 congregate on the edges of rookeries. Baby seals, or pups, are not harvested. 

 Females are taken only when it is necessary to keep the number of animals 

 at the most productive level the Pribilof environment can support. Overcrowd- 



