from 440,000 to 590,000 pups (Kenyon et al. 1954:1). It dif- 

 fered from an estimate of 1,131,567 pups obtained by the "of- 

 ficial computation" method and last published for the year 

 1947. We will return later to a discussion of the important 

 population studies carried on from 1948 to 1952. 



In a memorandum to the Washington office 13 (August 

 1948), Superintendent Edward C. Johnston wrote that he had 

 photographed all Pribilof rookeries. "The regular series, nega- 

 tive nos. 1-132 inclusive was taken on St. Paul Island, July 

 15-19 and on St. George July 21-24, 1948. . . . The equipment 

 used was a 5 x 7 inch Press Graflex. ... In the absence of any 

 information regarding the taking of this series since 1925, it 

 was found advisable to add a number of new photographic sta- 

 tions. . . ." 



Some of the Pribilof rookeries were photographed on 28 

 July 1949 from a U.S. Air Force (B-29) long-range bomber. 

 Kenyon recalls seeing the aircraft high overhead at St. Paul; it 

 did not land, and was said to have returned to a base in Louisi- 

 ana. The photos were not sharp; only two were saved. 



The body of a premature seal pup weighing only 3.5 lb (1.6 

 kg), or one-third the normal weight of a newborn, was found 

 on St. Paul Island on 16 July 1948. It was pink and sparsely 

 haired. After the biologists became aware of premature pups, 

 they saw many of them each summer. One collected on 11 

 August 1949 weighed 4.3 lb (2.0 kg) and was still alive though 

 weak. A premature pup may (?) represent abnormally long 

 delayed implantation. 



The question of how long a bull seal may remain on his 

 breeding territory without food was partly answered in 1948 

 when a St. Paul Islander, Lavrenty Stepetin, kept almost daily 

 watch over several bulls near Observation Rock. One remained 

 54 d, another 59 d, before quitting. Kenyon (1960:437) later 

 obtained better information. For 10 marked bulls, the days 

 spent on harem guard were: minimum 47 d; maximum at least 

 64 d; mean (of 9 bulls) 54.5 d. The physiology of the fasting 

 bull, particularly his water economy, has never been studied, 

 though Enders suggested as early as 1940 that such a study 

 would be desirable. 



In 1948 a yearling seal was killed and preserved by freezing. 

 Later, in Seattle it was X-rayed. The radiographs were donated 

 in 1957 to the Osteology Room of the British Museum. Other 

 radiographs of seal body parts have been made from time to 

 time, e.g., the flipper (Scheffer 1962, plate 111 B) and the 

 genital tract (Peterson and Reeder 1966). Keyes used radiogra- 

 phy in 1964 and in later years to study the effect of metal tags 

 upon vital parts of the flippers. 



A five-man research team from Harvard University, includ- 

 ing Fred Alexander and William S. Laughlin, visited the Pribi- 

 lofs in 1948 to study the Aleut-speaking people (Anonymous 

 1948). Alexander made an electrocardiogram of a fur seal pup; 

 Laughlin blood-typed 27 seals and collected blood samples. 



In 1948 and 1949, blood serum from fur seals was collected 

 on St. Paul Island and sent to Alan A. Boyden, Director of the 

 Serological Museum of Rutgers University. In later years, when 

 a centrifuge was available, blood samples were collected on 

 several occasions (Blumberg et al. 1960; Fujino and Cushing 

 1960; Leone and Wiens 1956). 



Airmail service was inaugurated to St. Paul Island on 1 

 November 1948; tourist flights on 2 July 1949. Fouke Fur 



'U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 

 Washington, D.C. 



Company employees were first flown to St. Paul Island on 26 

 June 1950. 



The Black Douglas left Seattle on 2 November 1948 on her 

 third and last cruise of fur seal research. With biologists Ken- 

 yon and Scheffer, she went to the Pribilofs and back to 

 Unalaska. On 26 November, she headed southeast across the 

 stormy North Pacific, arriving at San Francisco on 6 Decem- 

 ber. The biologists saw seals almost daily during the 10-d run, 

 some of them 1,000 mi (1,600 km) from land (Wilke and Ken- 

 yon 1954:434). Kenyon shot and recovered a seal off the Faral- 

 lons on 12 December — the only fur seal collected during the 

 pelagic sealing regime of the Black Douglas. 



Meanwhile, in 1948 a plan was shaping up in Tokyo for 

 pelagic research in waters off Japan. Japan had surrendered to 

 the Allied Forces on 2 September 1945. A Natural Resources 

 Section of GHQ-SCAP (General Headquarters, Supreme 

 Commander for the Allied Powers) immediately undertook to 

 study the natural resources of Japan and to assist in their res- 

 toration. Its Wildlife Branch was activated on 4 September 

 1946 (Austin and Wilke 1950:30). Ford Wilke was sent by the 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to study the migration and food 

 habits of seals wintering off Japan. He started operations in 

 December 1948 on a "tsukimbosen," a small, peculiar Japa- 

 nese craft also known as a harpoon boat, or a porpoise-and- 

 seal hunting boat. He collected one seal in December and 21 

 others in January to March 1949, at which time pelagic re- 

 search was called off (Austin and Wilke 1950:36-37; Wilke 

 1951:3-4). 



Wilke and two Japanese biologists resumed pelagic studies 

 from 15 March to 31 May 1950 on the Geizan Maru during 

 which time they collected 453 seals (Wilke 1951). The 1950 ex- 

 pedition is historically important because it set a pattern for 

 the many expeditions which were later carried out by scientists 

 of the four North Pacific nations. Among the research accom- 

 plishments in 1950 were the following: 1) The wintering popu- 

 lation off Japan was estimated to be at least 125,000 seals, of 

 which one-tenth to one-fiftieth were of Pribilof origin based 

 on tag recoveries and the assumed Asiatic rookery popula- 

 tions. This was startling news. 2) Of 51 females judged on the 

 basis of tooth-ridge counts to be 3-yr-olds, none was pregnant. 

 Upset was a long-held belief, namely, that the female is im- 

 pregnated for the first time at the end of her second year. 3) 

 Northern fur seals, regardless of origin, were shown to be in- 

 distinguishable and hence referable to a single species, C. ur- 

 sinus. The main evidence was obtained by comparing the 

 skulls of 151 seals collected off Japan with those of 105 seals 

 from Alaska, all females at least 4 yr old. 4) Seals were found 

 to be feeding on small schooling lanternfishes (55°7o by volume 

 of stomach contents) and squids (44%). No evidence was 

 found to substantiate Japanese claims that seals were feeding 

 heavily on salmon and other commercially important species. 



1949 



We return to research on the Pribilofs. In 1949, George 

 Colin Lawder Bertram, of Cambridge University, visited the 

 Pribilofs. He came with experience in pinniped research in 

 Antarctica and elsewhere (Bertram 1940). His thoughtful sug- 

 gestions on research were stimulating to the American biolo- 

 gists. 



In July 1949 a useful technique was discovered by accident 

 (Scheffer 1950c). Scheffer had extracted and cleaned the teeth 



33 



