1940 



The year 1940 is important in fur seal history for three 

 reasons: 1) By 1940 or thereabouts, the Pribilof seal herd had 

 reached a population plateau. Limited by its natural environ- 

 ment and by commercial cropping, the herd was no longer able 

 to grow. The fact was not recognized in 1940 (Kenyon et al. 

 1954, fig. 13 on p. 42). 2) On 23 October 1940, the Japanese 

 Government gave formal notice of abrogation of the Treaty of 

 1911, on the ground that the increased number of fur seals in 

 the North Pacific was causing serious damage to her fishing in- 

 dustry (Bower 1942:54; Tomasevich 1943:66; Roberts 1945: 

 270). This break eventually led to a better treaty in 1957 con- 

 taining provision for a sustained research program. 3) On 30 

 June 1940, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was created. As 

 a result, mammalogists and fur seal managers, brought to- 

 gether for the first time in the same Service, were able to take a 

 fresh look at fur seal biology and the fur seal population. Since 

 then (except for the war year 1942), the seal herd has been 

 under continual study by one or more biologists. 



By 1939, two reliable statistics of the herd — the number of 

 harem bulls counted and the number of seals killed in June and 

 July — were falling progressively each year below expectations. 

 This led to suspicion that the method of annually computing 

 herd size was faulty. So firmly established, however, was the 

 method that it remained in use until 1947 by which time it was 

 producing figures far removed from reality and its use was 

 abandoned (Thompson 1952a:51). 



In early 1940, Ira N. Gabrielson, then chief of the Bureau of 

 Biological Survey, learned that he would soon be responsible 

 for the fur seal herd. He asked Frank Getz Ashbrook, in charge 

 of fur-animal investigations for the Biological Survey, to draft 

 a plan of research on seals. As part of that plan, collaborator 

 Robert K. Enders, of Swarthmore University, listed (in memo 

 of 2 May 1940) many important, unanswered questions with 

 regard to fur seal reproduction. Among them were: When 

 do the males and females mature sexually? What is the average 

 length of their breeding life? Is implantation delayed? What is 

 the optimum sex ratio of breeding adults? 



Enders did not have an opportunity to visit the seal islands, 

 though he and two of his graduate students maintained an in- 

 terest in fur seal reproduction and published three papers on 

 the subject (Enders 1945; Enders et al. 1946; Pearson and 

 Enders 1951). 



Gabrielson and Ashbrook visited the Pribilof Islands in the 

 summer of 1940 and became acquainted with the research 

 problems involved in seal management. Also present was 

 Harry C. Fassett, who had collected plants at Unalaska in 

 1890. He was an amateur naturalist, and formerly captain's 

 clerk of the research vessel Albatross. He was appointed agent 

 of St. Paul Island in 1914 and remained on the Pribilofs for 

 some years thereafter, Also present in 1940 was Victor Blan- 

 chard Scheffer, a biologist of the Biological Survey who was 

 sent to the Pribilofs in June for 4 mo to study the seal popula- 

 'ion (Scheffer 1940'°). He had spent the summers of 1937 and 

 !938 in the Aleutian Islands (Murie 1959). Part of his job on 



the Pribilofs was to criticize the methods of estimating age and 

 sex composition of the herd, and where methods were found 

 inadequate or obsolete, to recommend new ones. Of historical 

 interest are the following points in his report: 



1) With the help of Aleuts who remembered how counting 

 had been done in 1924, all pups on Zapadni Reef were rounded 

 up, made to "run the gantlet," and were counted on 13 

 August. The total was 3,250 ± 100 living pups and 196 dead. 

 These figures did not agree with the official ones arrived at by 

 pure computation— 1,200 living and 10 dead (Johnston 1942: 

 71). The discrepancy highlighted the need of research. 



2) During September, 5,000 pups were hot-iron branded in 

 order to provide specimens of known age for future anatomi- 

 cal studies and to establish a basis for Peterson-type (1896) 

 population studies. Pups had last been branded for scientific 

 purposes in 1912. Branding in 1940 (Fig. 6 top) was a slow and 

 disagreeable job, and was probably harmful to the pups. 



3) Noting that only two females from the 1912 brandings 

 had later been killed for study, Scheffer (footnote 10) (Fig. 6 

 bottom) recommended that known age females from the 1940 

 brandings be killed systematically to provide information on 

 reproductive anatomy. He was handicapped in 1940, however, 



'"Scheffer, V. B. 1940. Report on studies in the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, in the 

 summer of 1940. Section on fur seals followed by correspondence and com- 

 ments. Unpubl. rep., 224 p. Northwest and Alaska Fish. Cent., Natl. Mar. 

 Mammal Lab., Natl. Mar. Fish. Serv., NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE., 

 Seattle. WA 981 15. 



Figure 6. — Top: Branding seal pups on Ihe Reef, 27 September 1940 (pholo by 

 V. B. Scheffer). Bottom: Victor B. Scheffer in his St. Paul laboratory 8 July 

 1945, self-portrait (photo by V. B. Scheffer). 



27 



