JOINT STATEMENT OF CONCLUSIONS 243 
by. the herd during the twelvemonth 1896 to 1897, without attempting, save by setting 
the above numbers on record, to ascribe to the decrease more precise figures. 
9. The methods of driving and killing practiced on the islands, as they have come 
under our observation during the past two years, call for no criticism or objection. 
An adequate supply of bulls is present on the rookeries; the number of older bachelors 
rejected in the drives during the period in question is such as to safeguard in the 
immediate future a similarly adequate supply; the breeding bulls, females, and pups 
on the breeding rookeries are not disturbed; there is no evidence or sign of impairment, 
by driving, of the virility of males; the operations of driving and killing are conducted 
skillfully and without inhumanity. 
10. The pelagic industry is conducted in an orderly manner and in a spirit of 
acquiescence in the limitations imposed by the law. 
11. Pelagic sealing involves the killing of males and females alike, without 
discrimination and in proportion as the two sexes coexist in the sea. “The reduction 
of inales effected on the islands causes an enhanced proportion of females to-be found 
in the pelagic catch; hence this proportion, if it vary from no other cause, varies at 
least with the catch upon the islands. In 1895 Mr. A. B. Alexander, on behalf of 
the Government of the United States, found 62.3 per cent of females in the catch of 
the Dora Siewerd in Bering Sea, and in 1896 Mr. Andrew Halkett, on behalf of the 
Canadian government, found 84.2 in the catch of the same schooner in the same sea. 
There are, no doubt, instances, especially in the season of migration and on the course 
of the migrating herds, of catches containing a very different proportion of the two 
Sexes. 
12. The large proportion 6f females in the pelagic catch includes not only adult 
females that are both nursing and pregnant, but also young seals that are not 
pregnant, and others that have not yet brought forth young, with such also as have 
recently lost their young through the various causes of natural mortality. 
13. The polygamous habit of the animal, coupled with an equal birth rate of the 
two sexes, permits a large number of males to be removed with impunity from the 
herd, while, as with other animals, any similar abstraction of females checks or 
lessens the herd’s increase, or, when carried further, brings about an actual diminution 
of the herd. It is equally plain that a certain number. of females may be killed 
without involving the actual diminution of the herd, if the number killed do not 
exceed the annual increment of the breeding herd, taking into consideration the 
annual losses by, death through old age and through incidents at sea. 
14, While, whether from a consideration of the birth rate-or from an inspection 
of the visible effects, it is manifest that the take of females in recent years has been 
so far in excess of the natural increment as to lead to a reduction of the herd in the 
degree related above, yet the ratio of the pelagic catch of one year to that of the | 
following has fallen off more rapidly than the ratio of the breeding herd of one year 
to the breeding herd of the next.’ 
1 Statements on which to base an estimate of the relative numbers of these several classes are 
necessarily incomplete, but the following notes may serve as a partial guide: Townsena, Report, 1895, 
pp. 46,47; Alexander, Report, 1895, pp. 142, 143; Macoun, Report, 1897, MSS.; Lucas, Report, 1897, MSS. 
2 The catch of the pelagic fleet, Canadian and American, in 1897 in Bering Sea was 16,657 seals. 
In the summer of 1896 it was 29,500. The aggregate catch which directly influenced the herd of 1897 
was 38,922, a number made up by adding to the summer’s catch of 1896 the northwest coast catch in 
the spring of 1897. Up to the present time, accordingly, the pelagic catch already taken (16,657), and 
