CAEE OP BLUE FOXES. 341 



When we contrast these recent catches with those of the earlier period covered 

 by the statistics of Petroff, we find that there has been a marked falling off in the 

 product of the herd. It is not necessary to look for the probable cause. While the 

 foxes are protected at other seasons of the year, during the period of trapping their 

 only safety lies in the limitations of the trapper's ingenuity and in their skill to elude 

 him. With an extended period of hunting, especially at the time when food is scarce, 

 doubtless the whole herd could be wiped out in a single season. 



The precarious condition of the herd, or at least the importance of taking better 

 care of it, has evidently been recognized by the Department, as the following 

 quotation from Chief Agent Crowley's report for 1893 will show : ' 



I have ordered that the catoh of blue foxes be limited to the month of December, 1893, and that the 

 price fixed for the skins taken be $5 apiece. The cattae for limiting the time to one mouth for trapping 

 was, in my judgment, necessary for the preservation of the foxes. It is suggested in my instructions 

 in connection with the blue-fox trapping that if a trap could be contrived in such a way as to prevent 

 injury to the fox, and all females so caught turned loose, such a course would tend to, increase the 

 supply of these valuable animals. Such a method would certainly be an advantage if it were possible 

 to carry it into effect; but at least two obstacles will be in ttie way of making this method a success. 

 First, to invent a trap sufficiently large to hold a fox without doing him some bodily injury, and 

 devising a plan to Induce the wary fox into it ; second, to take chances on the native trapper, who 

 has probably tramped across the island from five to seven times a week through cold and snow knee 

 deep, having convictions of honesty and courage enough, when he comes to his trap and finds the only 

 fox he has caught that week to be a female, to turn it loose. I advised, however, that this sort of a 

 box trap be tried as an experinient. To avoid the wholesale slaughter of foxes, the better plan would 

 be to adopt the rule of only trapping foxes every alternate winter until they have increased sufficiently 

 to warrant a more frequent limited catch. 



Here the attempt has been made to exempt the females from slaughter. Doubt- 

 less in accordance with these same instructions, Mr. James Judge, agent in charge of 

 St. George Island, in the season of 1896-97 pnt the idea of a box trap into practical 

 execution. By salting away meat in the killing season and freshening it in the winter 

 to feed the foxes, he attracted them to certain centers where his traps were located, 

 and the females caught were released. 



It may be noted that these efforts to better the condition of the foxes are based 

 upon a mistaken analogy. It is attempted to treat the blue fox as though it were 

 identical in habits with the fur sekls. The female of the fur seals is exempt from 

 slaughter on the islands, and this principle is applied to the fox. The latter is not, 

 however, polygamous, and therefore the saving up of females without making pro- 

 vision for a like supply of males would be folly, unless it should have in time the effect 

 of developing in these animals a polygamous habit. 



We do not know the breeding habits of the blue foxes sufficiently well to say just 

 what should be done for their protection. From our casual observation it would seem 

 that they breed in pairs and bring forth several young at a time — two at lea^t, possibly 

 more. With these fundamental facts in mind, any system of preserving females only 

 is inadequate. The aim should be to leave a definite number of breeding pairs to 

 survive. When the number of pups born at a birth is exactly known, from a given 

 stock of breeders, it will be possible to know the approximate product. The problem 

 would then resolve itself into the discovery of practical methods for insuring the 

 reservation of an ample breeding stock and making provision for its growth. 



How this can be accomplished we are not prepared to say. The box-trap method 



1 Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Kesources of Alaska, 1897, Vol. I, p. 411. 



