himself of the data in their possession" (Judge, in U.S. Con- 

 gress, House 1911, Appendix A, p. 664). 



On 9 July 1899 the E. H. Harriman expedition, including 

 many scientists, stopped at St. Paul Island. Here "an opportu- 

 nity was afforded of studying these interesting breeding- 

 grounds of the fur-seal" (Kincaid 1901:73). Apparently the 

 party stayed only 1 d (Hulte'n 1940:316). 



The Department of Commerce and Labor was created by an 

 act approved 14 February 1903 (32 Stat. 828). On 1 July 1903 

 the "Alaskan Fur-Seal Service" was transferred from the 

 Treasury Department to the new department where it was 

 placed under the immediate direction of the chief clerk, Frank 

 H. Hitchcock. Also on 1 July 1903 the Bureau of Fisheries was 

 created out of the old Fish Commission which had been an in- 

 dependent agency of the Government from its start in 1871. 

 The fur seal service was not, however, immediately placed in 

 the Bureau. David Starr Jordan urged in December 1905 that 

 this be done. In a letter of 28 December 1908, the Secretary of 

 Commerce and Labor issued intradepartmental orders and the 

 transfer was effected. From 1908 to the present, fur seal mat- 

 ters have been the responsibility of a federal fishery agency 

 under one name or another. George M. Bowers, Commis- 

 sioner, Bureau of Fisheries, created on 12 January 1909 a 

 "Fur-Seal Board" of five employees: Evermann, Lembkey, 

 Marsh, Judge, and Alexander; also an "advisory board" of six 

 nonemployees: Jordan, Stejneger, Merriam, Sims, Lucas, and 

 Townsend. (The foregoing history is from U.S. Congress, 

 House 1911, Appendix A, p. 5, 662-667, 689, 811; from Sater 

 1960:4-5; and from Evermann and Chamberlain 1912:5.) 



Early in 1904, resolutions had been introduced in both 

 houses of Congress calling for the suspension altogether of 

 sealing on the Pribilofs (U.S. Congress, House 1904:57). Be- 

 hind them lay the "Elliott campaign" (U.S. Congress, House 

 1904:47) against the North American Commercial Company. 

 As a result, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor called on 1 

 May 1904 for renewed studies of the fur seal herd and for 

 tighter management methods (U.S. Congress, House 

 1904:35-43). He issued the "Hitchcock regulations," infor- 

 mally so-called because they had been drafted by his chief 

 clerk. Hitchcock was especially interested in fur seals; he had 

 been an assistant to Merriam in 1891 (Hitchcock 1904:52). 



During the season of 1904, over 2,000 bachelors were 

 marked for the "breeding reserve," some by hot iron and 

 some by clippers (U.S. Congress, House 1904:45, 61-62, 128). 

 Nearly all skins taken were weighed in fresh condition (U.S. 

 Congress, House 1904:91-92). The rookeries were to have been 

 photographed with two new "Carlton" cameras 8x10 in 

 (20 x 25cm), but the cameras did not arrive in time (U.S. Con- 

 gress, House 1904:48, 51). All rookeries, however, were pho- 

 tographed in 1905 and some in 1906 from the camera stations 

 of 1892-97 (Lembkey 1908:33; Marsh 1911:361) (Fig. 3 top). 

 All of the 1904 studies were supervised by Lembkey, agent in 

 charge of seal fisheries. 



Throughout U.S. ownership of the Pribilofs, sealing man- 

 agers have tried with varying effort to take seals of selected 

 kinds. They have concentrated on the 2-, 3-, and 4-yr males, 

 and the fur market has developed on the basis of skins from 

 animals of these ages. Until 1913, however, the managers had 

 no way of knowing the true age of a seal. They killed for size, 

 and a measure of their judgement was disclosed later when the 

 salted skins were graded for size in London. By 1892, and 

 probably earlier, records were being kept in London, not only 



of grades but also of weights of the salted skins (U.S. Con- 

 gress, Senate 1895, part 8, p. 917). 



Some control, based on fresh skin weight, of the sizes of 

 seals killed was evidently in effect through the lease years. The 

 record is not clear; it does not show whether the control was 

 imposed by the Government or by the lessees. Daniel Webster 

 was continuously in charge of local killings for at least 24 yr, 

 from 1868 to at least 1892. He stated in 1892 that "until 1887 

 or 1888. . .the decrease [due to pelagic sealing] was not felt in 

 obtaining skins, at which time the standard was lowered from 

 6 and 7 pounds to 5 and 4 1 /: pounds" (U.S. Congress, Senate 

 1896a, part 1, p. 148). This means, we believe, that the mini- 

 mum size was reduced to 4.5 lb (2.0 kg) for summer-taken 

 skins and 5 lb (2.3 kg) for fall-taken skins. 



We find later, however, that "previous to 1904 no restric- 

 tion upon the size of bachelors to be killed was enforced" 

 [Lembkey 1910(191 1):758] (Fig. 4 top). Starting with the sea- 

 son of 1904, the lessees were ordered to kill deliberately no 

 seals, the "green" (fresh) skins of which were<5.5 lb (2.5 kg) 

 or more than 8.5 lb (3.9 kg) in weight. From 1906 to 1911, in- 

 clusive, the limits were 5 and 8.5 lb (2.3 and 3.9 kg). (The leas- 

 ing system was abandoned at the end of 1909.) From 1904 to 

 1911 the Pribilof manager was required not only to kill pre- 

 scribed sizes of males, but to submit for publication at the end 

 of the season a distribution list of the weights of all skins taken 

 (U.S. Congress, Senate 1908:37; U.S. Congress, House 1911, 

 Appendix A, p. 758, 1185; Lembkey 1912:98). 



From 1904 to 1923, though not in each year, it was the cus- 

 tom to mark a specific number of bachelor seals before, dur- 

 ing, or following the killing season. The operation was referred 

 to as "shearing," "clipping," or "branding," though it meant 

 clipping, with sheepshears, a round patch of the pelage from 

 the top of the head. (Hot-iron branding of bachelors was tried 

 but abandoned midway through the season of 1904; it was re- 

 sumed in 1923.) Shearing was done to reassure the public that 

 an adequate breeding reserve was being spared (Lembkey 

 1912:94; Scheffer 1950d:7). Today, adequate escapement of 

 males is insured through population studies and controlled 

 harvests. Up to the 1950's, one could still occasionally find 

 near the killing fields a weathered wooden yoke which had 

 been used to hold the bachelor's neck to the ground during the 

 shearing operation. 



In 1904, the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and 

 Sciences was cautiously granted permission to secure "for 

 scientific purposes six skins of fur seals meeting death through 

 accident" on the Pribilof Islands, though the scientific collec- 

 tor of the museum was not permitted to visit the islands (U.S. 

 Congress, House 1911, Appendix A, p. 43). 



The annual bull count was established as routine in 1904. A 

 manuscript in the Marine Mammal Biological Laboratory (file 

 7.04.01) entitled "Fur Seal Data, 1896-1908" shows annual 

 bull counts by rookeries. Complete counts were made in 1896, 

 1897, 1899, and in 1904-08. Partial counts were made in the 

 other years. 



In a letter dated 16 January 1906, David Starr Jordan wrote 

 to the President urging that a naturalist be appointed to the 

 Pribilofs. He reiterated that "the fur-seal question is now 

 chiefly, almost wholly, biological" (U.S. Congress, House 

 1911, Appendix A, p. 328). Official reports from the islands 

 indicated that no adequate study was being made of hook- 

 worm, changes in harem areas, the bull-to-cow ratio, and 

 other biological matters. "In recommending the transfer of 



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