INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 61 



cumstances of great distress and anxiety for himself, is simply idle, 

 for no study of that life was ever made by "its discoverer," or 

 could be. 



* * * An exact count of the full birth rate of pups in 1912 showed an average 

 family of 60 cows to each bull, with idle bulls to spare (p. 2). 



The official proof is in evidence of the fact that an "exact count" 

 of the "full birth rate of pups in 1912" was never made, since all the 

 attempts to make such a "count" in the seasons of 1901, 1902 ; 

 1903, 1904, 1905, and 1906 by trained, trusted agents were and are 

 all self-confessed failures, and are so recorded. (See Exhibit G T 

 postea.) 



* * * Female seals are protected by law and custom from killing, and the 

 breeding seals are in no way disturbed. A definite breeding reserve of the young 

 males is marked and set aside from the animals first arriving in the spring before com- 

 mercial killing is begun. The 3-year-old males and the larger 2-year-olds are killed, 

 the younger and older animals found on the hauling grounds are released and returned 

 to the sea, the former to be the basis of the future quota, the latter to replenish the 

 stock of breeding males (p. 2). 



That this "breeding reserve" has not been made and that yearlings- 

 (not "larger 2 and 3 year old males") have been killed by thousands 

 and tens of thousands since 1890, up to date of 1913, is absolutely 

 proven in Exhibits A, B, E, and F, and self-confessed therein (antea 

 postea). 



******* 



The processes of land sealing do not contravene that natural law which decrees that 

 the fittest shall survive. The struggle for existence in the case of the seal occurs at 

 sea, where it gets all its food and where it spends the winter. The harsh conditions 

 of the northern winter constitute a sifting process by which the old, the weak, and the 

 inefficient are ruthlessly weeded out. Each animal returning to the islands in the 

 spring is physically and vitally the best of its kind (p. 2). 



The "harsh conditions of the northern winter" are never met by 

 the seals ; they leave the Bering Sea and the North Pacific annually, 

 long before any ice appears there; they are in the same water as for 

 temperature and weather during December, January, February, and 

 March as they were in during June, July, August, and September 

 prior annually; they are off San Francisco, Cal., in December, off 

 Washington in March, and then go back to Behring Sea by June and 

 July. There is no "struggle for existence at sea," such as Jordan 

 asserts. It is fiction, not "truth," which he publishes. 



Man's selection for his own uses is not of the best, but of a given age or size, among 

 animals otherwise alike equally fit (p. 2). 



The lessees have taken every young male seal from 2 years old 

 up to 4 years annually that they could find on the islands since 

 1896. If that is not getting all of the "best," then nonsense is sense r 

 and Jordan is right. (See proof of this in Exhibits A and B antea 

 and postea, where the full detail is given.) 



At the time of the transfer to the United States the herd numbered about 2,500,000 

 animals. In 1896-1897 it numbered about 400,000 animals. It numbers in the sea- 

 son of 1912 about 215,000 animals (p. 3). 



The fact that Jordan has not the slightest warrant for saying that 

 this herd only numbered in 1867 "about 2,500,000 animals" and in 

 1896-97 only "400,000 animals" is set forth in detail by Exhibit 

 A antea. The nonsense and bald assumption of his census of 1896-97 



