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Jims Bulletin 



OF THE 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



No. 5 



Published by the JftCU) gntft ZsOO(OBICal .§.oeictp 



July, igoi 



THE XE\Y YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S EXPEDITION TO ALASKA. 



To most persons, certain recent revelations 

 regarding the abundance of large mammals in 

 Alaska have come as a complete surprise. 

 While Alaska's fur-bearing animals have been 

 known for a long period, and its fur-seal, sea- 

 otter, foxes, wolverines, and beaver have been 

 diligently exploited, its wealth of bears and 

 large hoofed animals have been hidden from 

 all save a comparatively few persons. It was 

 not until 1884 that E. W. Nelson discovered 

 the White Sheep. The identity of the Kadiak 

 Bear, an ursine colossus, was unknown until 

 described by Dr. Merriam in 1896, and of 

 it no museum contains a mounted specimen 

 of any kind. The strongly marked Glacier 

 Bear is represented by one solitary mounted 

 specimen, produced by mounting a commer- 

 cial pelt. Of Stone's Black Sheep, only two 

 museums' possess specimens. Of Fannin's 

 Saddle-Back Sheep, only one mounted speci- 

 men exists. There is probably less definite 

 information, and more of uncertainty and con- 

 fusion, regarding the true classification of the 

 bears of Xorthwestern America than any other 

 group of reallv important American mam- 

 mals. 



As a field for stalwart enterprise in zoologi- 

 cal collecting, Alaska is temptingly rich ; but, 

 so far as can be learned, no American museum 

 is attempting to exploit it seriously and ex- 

 haustively. Truly, the first museum which 

 has the pluck and energy to send into that 

 country a competent corps of collectors will 

 reap a rich harvest. The friends of the Amer- 

 ican Museum have made a beginning for that 

 institution by subscribing $5,000 a year for 

 three years' work in Alaska by Andrew J. 

 Stone. About one-half of this sum was con- 

 tributed by members of the Board of Man- 

 agers of the Zoological Society, through the 

 efforts of Mr. Madison Grant, and the expe- 

 dition is under the joint control of Mr. Grant 

 and Dr. J. A. Allen. Mr. Stone is now on his 

 way north, accompanied by an assistant well 

 trained in field-collecting. 



The New York Zoological Society is young, 

 and its energies and resources already are heav- 

 ily taxed in the development of the Zoological 



Park. Nevertheless it proposes to do its share 

 of the plain duty of American scientific insti- 

 tutions to collect and place before the Ameri- 

 can people satisfactory examples of the most 

 important animal life of our Arctic province. 



On March 12th Mr. J. Alden Loring, a 

 field-collector of eight years' successful experi- 

 ence, was sent by the Society to Alaska to col- 

 lect living animals for the Park. He went to 

 Cook's Inlet on the first boat of this year. If 

 he has been successful in engaging a field- 

 party and purchasing boats, he is to-day in the 

 haunts of the White Sheep, Alaska Bear, and 

 Giant Moose, in quest of newly born specimens 

 of all three. 



Only Alaskan travellers and hunters can 

 fully appreciate the difficulties, to say nothing 

 of dangers, of the work before him. Hereto- 

 fore men who could kill Alaskan big game, 

 and get their trophies out of the mountains, 

 have been properly accounted worthy of praise ; 

 but killing game, and transporting inanimate 

 trophies, is child's play in comparison with 

 catching alive the wariest and also the most 

 dangerous of American animals, keeping them 

 alive and successfully transporting them by 

 pack and boat, over rugged mountains and on 

 rapid and turbulent streams, to a seaport. 

 The odds are against Mr. Loring's success ; 

 but success has been won ere this against odds 

 just as heavy. If anyone can bring living 

 animals out of the Kenai Peninsula, Mr. Lor- 

 ing can do so, and we believe that he will suc- 

 ceed, although success may be won on other 

 lines than those by which we expect it. 



Inasmuch as the Society already is the fort- 

 unate possessor of two fine, though immature, 

 specimens of the Kadiak Bear, no special effort 

 will be made at present to secure additional 

 representatives of that species. The species 

 most desired is the White Sheep. It is believed 

 that if any one of the six species of American 

 Mountain Sheep ever is successfully acclima- 

 tized in this part of the world, it will be Ovis 

 dalli, which, on the coast of Alaska, often is 

 found at a low altitude and in a humid atmos- 

 phere, where the extremes of heat and cold are 

 strongly marked. 



