452 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



Mr. Clark. There was no conflict of authority. The lessees 

 obeyed the letter of the law. They were required to take no skins 

 less than 5 pounds, and they obeyed that regulation. They were 

 required first, before they could kill a single seal, to set aside 2,000 

 of them by marking them on the head or branding them as a " breeding 

 reserve," and when that was done they could take all the seals left 

 without doing the herd any harm. I would like to read this para- 

 graph also in this connection, on page 866 : 



With a declining herd this close killing has not been so important as it would be in 

 the case of an increasing herd. Fewer and fewer bulls have constantly been needed 

 on the breeding grounds. Of the 5,000 bulls occupying harems in 1896, only 1,387 

 were needed in 1909. A diminished breeding reserve has therefore been possible. 

 But we must consider a reversed condition of things, if pelagic sealing is to be done 

 away with. The herd will then begin to grow. It will require a constantly increasing 

 reserve of breeding males, which must be saved from the killing fields. A leasing 

 company will be just as eager to get all possible skins and will press the product of 

 the hauling grounds, rising all too slowly, to its limit unless restrained. 



The Chairman. In your report did you call it whirlwind sealing on 

 the part of the company? 



Mr. Clark. I did. 



The Chairman. Is that true in your report ? 



Mr. Clark. Yes; it is true. 



The Chairman. It is true ? 



Mr. Clark. I should call it whirlwind sealing. 



The Chairman. In other words, you meant the sealing company 

 had cleaned up everything they could get ? 



Mr. Clark. Yes. 



The Chairman. And you made that report? 



Mr. Clark. Yes. 



The Chairman. And you want to say now that is true ? 



Mr. Clark. It is true and I want to explain what I mean by it. 

 They cleaned up all of the 2- year- old animals. They killed abso- 

 lutely no yearlings out of the herd because the yearlings do not 

 appear on the hauling grounds in the killing season; that is all. 



The Chairman. Did you say that in your report? 



Mr. Clark. I did not know it. 



The Chairman. Or do you just want to get it in another shape now ? 



Mr. Clark. I did not know it at the time. This matter comes to 

 my knowledge as the result of the branding of 1912. We branded 

 6,000 pups with a red-hot iron on the head, and we searched for those 

 animals the next year, and if yearlings come to the hauling grounds 

 those animals would have come, and they did not come except two 

 or three animals which we saw. We searched the rookeries for them 

 and did not find them. 



The Chairman. You said this morning that no man could tell a 

 yearling seal from a 2-year-old, did you not? 



Mr. Clark. Yes, sir; but when I got a branded mark on the head 

 of a seal I knew it was a yearling, and that was the first time I saw 

 a yearling, except one in Golden Gate Park, which I watched for a 

 whole year. 



The Chairman. Now, it is your opinion as an expert that a man 

 can not detect a yearling seal on the islands from a 2-year-old. That 

 is what you said this morning. 



Mr. Clark. Yes: I will stand by that. 



The Chairman. Do you mean to say that is a fact? 



