due for arousing public interest in the plight of the fur seals, 

 for ending the contract system, and for ending pelagic sealing 

 (Hornaday 1920, 1931; Martin 1946a:237-246). 



The Bureau of Fisheries, hopeful in 1910 that Government 

 control of sealing could begin on a firm scientific basis, re- 

 solved to employ a permanent naturalist. Until one could be 

 found, Harold Heath, professor of zoology at Stanford Uni- 

 versity, was given a temporary appointment. He arrived at St. 

 Paul Island in June 1910 and returned in the summers of 1917 

 and 1918 (U.S. Congress, House 1911, Appendix A, p. 972, 

 1209; Heath 1911; Preble and McAtee 1923:125). He made a 

 relief map of St. Paul. In 1918 he fell from Tolstoi Point and 

 suffered fractures of both legs and several face bones. 



On 24 August 1910, Walter Louis Hahn, formerly head of 

 the biology department at South Dakota State Normal School, 

 arrived at St. Paul Island to be permanent naturalist. He was 

 to "have charge of all matters pertaining to the investigation, 

 study, and management of the fur-seal herd, the blue foxes, 

 and all other life on the islands" and to "give advice to the 

 agent in charge regarding the number of seals and foxes to be 

 killed each season" (U.S. Congress, House 1911, Appendix A, 

 p. 978). His duties were to survey the possibility of introducing 

 reindeer, sheep, poultry, muskrats, mussels, crawfish, mink, 

 otter, water lilies, and other useful animals and plants; also to 

 experiment in the artificial rearing of fur seal pups (U.S. Con- 

 gress, House 1911, Appendix A, p. 981-987). Hahn converted 

 a native house into the first biological laboratory (Hanna foot- 

 note 7, p. 5). He was to have collected in 191 1 some "material 

 from at least two young male seals" for shipment to "H. Dex- 

 ler" (undoubtedly the noted German anatomist) (U.S. Con- 

 gress, House 1911, Appendix A, p. 1008). Unfortunately, 

 Hahn drowned in Village Lagoon on 31 May 1911. 



During the sealing season of 1910, the first in 40 yr under 

 Government control, the Pribilof agent was busy in explaining 

 the new regime to the Aleuts, in arranging to purchase the 

 North American Commercial Company's property on the is- 

 lands, and other administrative matters. Reports by Lembkey 

 (1911c) and Heath (1911) indicate that little but routine biolog- 

 ical information was obtained. Attempts were made to raise 

 several dozen pups, some black and some silver, by force feed- 

 ing them milk, small fish, salt salmon, and (!) mutton broth. 

 Pups placed in a tank on 15 September ate at once some small 

 tidepool fishes (Liparis sp.?) and chopped sculpin. Does this 

 suggest that small inshore fishes may be their natural food at 

 weaning time? Ten silver pups were sent to Seattle on the Bear 

 (Lembkey 1911c: 1032). 



Heath recommended that "a museum be installed on the is- 

 lands, containing, so far as is practical, specimens of all the 

 animals and plants. And equally desirable is a library, com- 

 prising all works that in any way are concerned with the biol- 

 ogy of the country" (Heath 1911:1224). Subsequent events 

 have shown that Pribilof research materials are safer in well- 

 curated institutions in the continental United States. 



A graph showing the "land and pelagic catch of Pribilof Is- 

 lands fur seals, and average London prices of salted raw skins, 

 1870-1910" was given by Tomasevich (1943:79). 



In 1911, when the seal population was at its lowest level in 

 history, 1,356 harem bulls were counted, or one-eighth those 

 counted in 1964 (Lembkey 1912:99). An estimate of the total 

 herd, 123,600 seals, made in 1911, was probably low, for an es- 

 timate made the following year upon more reliable data was 

 75% higher. 



After the death of Hahn in 191 1, Millard C. Marsh, pathol- 

 ogist of the Bureau of Fisheries, was appointed chief naturalist 

 of the Pribilofs. He had spent the summer of 1906 on the is- 

 lands and he returned on 23 August 1911 (Evermann 1913: 

 9-10; Preble and McAtee 1923:3). 



On 7 July 191 1 a treaty which was to endure for 30 yr was 

 signed by representatives of the United States, Great Britain 

 (on behalf of Canada), Russia, and Japan. It became effective 

 on 15 December 1911 (U.S. Congress, House 1912). It had no 

 formal name but was referred to as "the convention. . .for the 

 preservation and protection of the fur seals and sea otter which 

 frequent the waters of the north Pacific Ocean" (U.S. Con- 

 gress, House 1912:3). Article 1 of the convention prohibited 

 citizens and subjects of the contracting parties from engaging 

 in pelagic sealing north of the 30th parallel in the North Pacific 

 Ocean, and Bering, Kamchatka, Okhotsk, and Japan Seas. In 

 Article 2, the contracting parties agreed that no person or ves- 

 sel engaged in any way with pelagic sealing could use their har- 

 bors or ports. In Article 3, the contracting parties prevented 

 the importation of North Pacific sealskins into their respective 

 territories except those officially taken on the breeding 

 grounds. Article 4, permitted the taking of seals by Indians, 

 Ainos, Aleuts, or other aborigines from canoes, not trans- 

 ported by other vessels, and propelled entirely by oars, pad- 

 dles, or sails and without use of firearms. Other Articles of the 

 convention dealt with enforcement of the treaty, and appor- 

 tionment of the harvest from the breeding islands. The sea ot- 

 ter also received protection under the treaty. The convention 

 effectively put an end to pelagic sealing and was instrumental 

 in leading to the recovery of the herds. 



THE PERIOD OF POPULATION 

 RECOVERY, 1912-39 



When Congress, on 24 August 1912, passed a law (37 Stat. 

 499) giving effect to the treaty, it also declared a closed season 

 on commercial sealing on the Pribilof Islands for 5 yr. The law 

 had been anticipated by the Bureau of Fisheries; no seals were 

 killed commercially in the summer of 1912, even before the law 

 went into effect. The kill through the summer season ending 1 1 

 August 1912 was only 2,427 (Evermann 1913:83). The closed 

 season was regarded by Evermann (1919:281) as an error in 

 judgement. "There was only one man [Elliott] who had ever 

 been to the seal islands who advocated a close season and the 

 large reservation of males, and his purpose was not the preser- 

 vation of the fur-seal herd. Every naturalist in America who 

 was familiar with the habits of the fur seal strongly protested 

 against both measures." Clark (1913) concurred. 



As the year 1912 opened, the fur seal herd was freed from a 

 30- yr drain upon its breeding stock, especially upon the female 

 element of the stock. "It became important therefore to know 

 the exact status of the herd and a full count of the pups was 

 undertaken and successfully accomplished by the writer" 

 (Clark 1912:896). Clark had helped with the partial counts of 

 1896-97 and 1909. 



In 1912 he counted 70,035 pups on St. Paul and 11,949 on 

 St. George, a total of 81,984. (When the herd finally recov- 

 ered, about 1940, the annual pup recruitment had risen to 

 about 530,000 (Kenyon et al. 1954:1).) For 5 successive years, 

 1912-16, and in 1922, all pups on the Pribilofs were counted. 

 After 1922, the task became too difficult; it was never re- 

 peated. 



20 



