Figure 5. — Top: Counting seal pups on Polovina Rookery, 8 August 1949; 

 Lavrenty Slepetin foreground (photo by V. B. Scheffer). Bottom: Superinten- 

 dent Edward C. Johnston warding off a harem bull during the annual bull 

 count, Zapadni Rookery, 18 July 1948 (photo by K. W. Kenyon). 



8) At the conclusion of their report, the team noted that "no 

 bibliography relating to the Pribilof fur seals has ever ap- 

 peared" (Osgood et al. 1915:149). They met the need with a 

 list of over 200 titles. 



"Their carefully prepared report agreed in every respect 

 with the findings of previous commissions, but [Secretary] 

 Redfield paid no attention to its recommendations" (Jordan 

 1922, vol. 1, p. 611). He ignored principally the recommenda- 

 tion that killing of superfluous young males be resumed. 



Parker continued an interest in the fur seal herd, especially 

 in its growth (Parker 1915, 1917, 1918, 1928). He concluded 

 (Parker 1915:3, 6) that "the natural relations are not far from 

 one male to thirty or forty females." He interpreted the dis- 

 crepancy in sexes as "imperfect" evolution, and adaptation of 

 the fur seal as a "poor fit." As late as 1928 he still held the 

 misconception that "the young cows are first impregnated at 

 the end of their second year" (Parker 1928:1057). As a matter 

 of fact, the females mature later than this. None are impreg- 

 nated at the end of their second year, and few at the end of 

 their third. The age of sexual maturity was not clearly under- 

 stood until 1952, when, for the first time, large numbers of fe- 

 males were killed for scientific study. 



A U.S. Navy radio station was established on St. Paul Is- 

 land in 1914 and the Navy crew showed the first motion pic- 

 tures on the Pribilofs on 21 June, in the carpenter shop 

 (Parker 1946:153). 



Preble continued to collect information on the wildlife of 

 the Pribilofs, though he did not return to the islands after 

 1914. He and Waldo L. McAtee, a fellow naturalist of the Bu- 

 reau of Biological Survey, published a general account of the 

 wildlife there (Preble and McAtee 1923). McAtee never visited 

 the islands. In the account, the only new information on fur 

 seals was a note (Preble and McAtee 1923:142) that the sea lion 

 louse (" Echinophthirius fluctus" Ferris, 1916) also occurs on 

 the fur seal. This parasite was called Proechinophthirius fluc- 

 tus by Ferris in 1951 (p. 300). 



growth rate of 6.5% for a herd newly spared from pelagic seal- 

 ing. They also indicated that great fluctuation should be ex- 

 pected as a normal feature of the annual birth rate. (This con- 

 cept was overlooked in later years when the herd was, for a 

 time, routinely managed without benefit of scientific studies.) 

 The survival rates of young seals to killable age could only be 

 learned, wrote the study team, if commercial sealing were to be 

 resumed. It was not in fact resumed until 1918 (Parker 1917, 

 1918). 



6) The team stressed the value of permanently branding a 

 number of 3-yr-old males each year in order to insure a future 

 breeding stock (Osgood et al. 1915:80). The idea was attractive 

 but impractical. It was carried out only once, 9 yr later, when 

 5,047 males about 3 yr old were branded (Bower 1925a: 11 8). 



1) The team pointed out that body length of a seal, from 

 nose to root of tail, on the killing field, is a better index of its 

 age than is skin weight (Osgood et al. 1915:90). They designed 

 the first calipers for use in the field. A breakdown of the Prib- 

 ilof kill by age as determined from body length was first pub- 

 lished for the season of 1917 (Hanna 1918: 1 18) and last for the 

 season of 1954 (Thompson 1956:64). The Bureau of Fisheries 

 had abandoned, at the end of 1911, the practice of recording 

 the salted-skin weight of every seal killed (Lembkey 1912:98). 

 The weights of 1 1 ,733 skins taken that year ranged from 4 to 

 9.5 lb (1.8 to 4.3 kg). 



Routine Management for 25 Years, 1915-39 



The management recommendations of Osgood, Preble, and 

 Parker in 1914 were largely accepted by the Bureau of Fisher- 

 ies. Under the careful leadership of Ward T. Bower, routine 

 techniques for counting bulls and pups, for measuring rookery 

 areas, for photographing the rookeries, and for estimating the 

 age composition of the annual kill were gradually developed. 

 These tasks fell to the island managers, administrative assis- 

 tants, storekeepers, or schoolteachers. At the same time, many 

 improvements in methods of harvesting seals and of processing 

 their skins were made. Unfortunately, as we shall point out, no 

 biologists or naturalists were on the scene, and scarcely any 

 zoological research on fur seals was carried on during the 25-yr 

 period. The main scientific and technological advances from 

 1915 to 1939 are given in the following pages. 



In 1915 a U.S. industry was born. "The actual treatment of 

 raw sealskins was begun at St. Louis in December, 1915 [by the 

 Gibbins and Lohn Fur Skin Dressing and Dyeing Company]" 

 (Bower and Aller 1917:107; Scheffer 1962:41). The first lot of 

 processed skins was sold the following year by the Govern- 

 ment's broker, Funsten Brothers and Company. In 1921, the 

 Government transferred its contract from Funsten to Gibbins 

 and Lohn, and in 1922, the principals of Gibbins and Lohn re- 

 organized as the Fouke Fur Company, still in existence. 



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