South of the Aleutians, Fiscus et al. (1964:40) found lac- 

 tating females about 250 mi (400 km) from St. George Island 

 and 290 mi (470 km) from St. Paul. This is evidence that seals 

 may travel at least 500 mi (800 km) between successive nursing 

 periods. It extends the feeding range as given by Lucas as "75 

 to 150 miles to the southward and eastward ... of the 

 Pribilofs" (Lucas 1899c:65). 



Yearlings were first tagged in 1961 and 1962. Body weight 

 was used in estimating age in 1961, body length in 1962. 

 Length was the better criterion. It resulted in a sample contain- 

 ing more males than females; the known sex ratio of yearlings 

 on land is about 4 males to 1 female (Roppel et al. 1963:27, 

 table 18). 



The first motion pictures for specific use in television were 

 taken on St. Paul Island in the summer of 1962 by Warren 

 Garst (Don Meier Productions), starring Marlin Perkins 

 director of the St. Louis Zoological Park. 



The by-products plant on St. Paul Island, built in late 1918, 

 closed on 16 August 1961 after producing 312 tons (283 metric 

 tons (t)) of seal meal and 52,458 gallons (198,575 1) of seal oil 

 that summer (Power 1963:326). In 1962, an experiment in the 

 salvaging of seal carcasses as food for ranch furbearers was at- 

 tempted. Marine Products, Ltd., of Vancouver, British Col- 

 umbia, spent 22-28 July off St. Paul Island icing down about 

 150 tons (135 t) of seal carcasses. These were unloaded in Van- 

 couver on 9 August, barely short of putrid. In 1953 the com- 

 pany took about 250 tons (225 t) of seal carcasses. 



In 1964, Pacific Fur Foods of Boring, Oreg., signed a 5-yr 

 contract for carcasses and installed a sharp-freezer in the old 

 by-products plant. The company used 85% of the carcasses 

 from the 1964 kill on St. Paul and produced about 744 tons 

 (675 t) of ground, bagged, frozen "sealburger." 



Seal blubber continued to be saved as in the past, to be used 

 in the processing of sealskins. From 100 to 200 barrels (55 gal 

 capacity, 208.2 1) of salted, raw blubber are used each year. 



In August 1962, Stuart P. Davey joined the Pribilof Fur Seal 

 Program as the first Wildlife Management Biologist. Among 

 his responsibilities were the gathering of routine biological 

 data and the carrying out of routine biological operations. 

 These included 1) age classification of the kill by tooth-layer 

 counts, 2) recovery of tags, 3) application of tags, 4) bull 

 counts, and 5) dead pup counts. Davey was also assigned the 

 task of training five Pribilof Aleuts as assistants. The main 

 idea was that a year-round resident management biologist and 

 resident helpers would do many of the tasks that the Marine 

 Mammal Biological Laboratory, with the help of college 

 students enlisted in summer, had been doing. Davey resigned 

 in autumn 1963 and his place was taken by Richard A. Hajny. 



1963 



On 8 October 1963 a protocol amending the Interim Con- 

 vention on Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals was signed 

 in Washington, D.C., by representatives of the four parties 

 (U.S. Congress, Senate 1963; U.S. State Department 1964). It 

 entered into force 10 April 1964. It extended the Convention 

 for another 6 yr, or until 14 October 1969. It relaxed certain 

 research requirements such as the number of seals to be col- 

 lected at sea by each party in each year. It changed slightly the 

 apportionment of sealskins to Canada and Japan. At the re- 

 quest of Japan, it called for study of the "effectiveness of each 

 method of sealing from the viewpoint of management and ra- 



tional utilization of fur seal resources for conservation pur- 

 poses (and) quality of sealskins by sex, age, and time and 

 method of sealing" (Article II). 



At the close of the 1963 season, a halt was called to "herd 

 reduction," an operation which had been designed to reduce 

 the herd to the level of maximum sustainable productivity. In 

 the last year, methods of harvesting and curing had been so 

 improved that over 97% of the female skins taken were cured; 

 fewer than 3% were condemned and destroyed on the islands. 

 Curing was performed for the first time in history by Govern- 

 ment employees. Former employees of the Fouke Fur Com- 

 pany were hired by the Government to train new men in blub- 

 bering, brining, and the other operations of curing. 



An important pup shearing program, designed to provide an 

 early estimate of the population, was initiated in 1963 (Fig. 14 

 bottom). Galvanized stakes were set in concrete early in the 

 summer to mark off sample transects; 21,929 pups were 

 sheared in late July and early August (Roppel et al. 

 1965b:26-27). To obtain an estimate of the population, the 

 marked-to-unmarked ratio in samples of 25 pups was ascer- 

 tained a week or two after marking. From the results, it was 

 estimated that 229,900 pups were alive at time of shearing on 

 St. Paul Island. Next year, the same methods were used, 

 though shearing effort was distributed within each rookery ac- 

 cording to the harem bull count (Roppel et al. 1965a:18-20). In 

 early August 1964, 27,716 pups were sheared; later in the 

 month, about 21,000 pups were examined on sample plots; of 

 these, about 1 in 9 was seen to be sheared. 



To test the assumption that older and stronger pups will bet- 

 ter survive the effects of tagging, a late-season operation was 

 carried out on St. Paul Island in 1963. As a control group, 

 10,000 pups were tagged near the usual time, 12-21 August, 

 while 10,000 were tagged between 20 and 26 September (Rop- 

 pel et al. 1965b:12). The test was repeated in 1964 though, 

 through a misunderstanding, the tagging site on the fore flip- 

 per was shifted 2 in (5 cm) for the September pups, thus in- 

 troducing a new variable. 



In 1963, the genital tracts of 310 known-age 3- and 4-yr 

 females were examined with special reference to ovulation 

 (Roppel et al. 1965b:ll). A seal was classified as "preovula- 

 tion" if her ovaries contained one or more Graafian follicles, 

 each 5 mm or larger in diameter. She was classified as "post- 

 ovulation" if one ovary contained a developing corpus 

 luteum. The basis for judging postovulation was satisfactory; 

 the postovulation rates were similar to the known pregnancy 

 rates of 3- and 4-yr-olds. The criterion for preovulation gave 

 results that could not be explained. The biologists concluded 

 that many of the seals classified as "preovulation" do not in 

 fact ovulate that year, or do not conceive, or lose the concep- 

 tus early in gestation. 



The first general "glossary of terms used in fur seal research 

 and management" was published in 1963 (North Pacific Fur 

 Seal Commission 1963). It defined 114 terms. Some of the 

 terms and several new ones, were later defined by Roppel et al. 

 (1965b:36). Ten veterinary terms were defined by Keyes (1964: 

 71). " 



"Keyes, M. C. 1964. Research in fur seal mortality, St. Paul Island, Alaska, 

 8 July to 24 September 1963. Unpubl. rep., 60 p. Northwest and Alaska Fish. 

 Cent., Natl. Mar. Mammal Lab., Natl. Mar. Fish. Serv., NOAA, 7600 Sand 

 Point Way NE., Seattle, WA 981 15. 



51 



