INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 489 



The Chairman. There is no doubt in my mind but that the tatle 

 by Mr. Eraser is correct. 



Mr. Clark. I want to refer you to page 243 of volume 1 of the 

 Report of the Fur Seal Investigation of 1896-97. This statement is 

 made : 



In 1895 Mr. A. B. Alexander, on behalf of the Government of the United States, 

 found 63.3 per cent of females in the eateh of the Dora Siewerd in Bering Sea. Late 

 in 1896 Mr. Andrew Halkett, on behalf of the Canadian Government, found 84.2 per 

 cent in the catch of the same schooner in the same sea. 



There figures were accepted as correct by the experts. 



Mr. Watkins. Was that because of the fact that we were pre- 

 serving an excess or a larger number of females on the island, and, 

 therefore, that there would be a larger number of females in pro- 

 portion to the males when they were out at sea ? 



Mr. Clark. There should be a greater number of females. The 

 greatest number of males needed to impregnate the herd would be 

 verv small, or one in about 29. There would necessarily be an excess 

 of females. 



Xov, we did not take this on faith, but in 1896 we sent Mr. Lucas, 

 a member of the commission, on a revenue cutter out to sea. He 

 gathered up the bodies of the animals taken by the pelagic sealers 

 and had them brought on board the ship, where he made an examina- 

 tion of them. I want to refer to some of his notes at page 406 of 

 volume 2 of the Report of the Commission for 1896-97. Out of 48 

 bodies brought on the deck of the revenue cutter, 2 were bodies of 

 young males, and "the remaining 46 were females over 2 years old, 

 some being very old. The 46 females were carefully examined 

 by Mr. Townsend and myself with the following results: 43 were 

 breeding females with nursing }'oung," and "42 of the females, in- 

 cluding 3 two-} T earolds, had been recently impregnated," showing 

 that the mother seal was not merely nursing her young but was 

 pregnant when taken in Bering Sea. That meant that the dependent 

 offspring starved to death and that an unborn life died with the 

 mother in her death. I would like to cite you to page 460 of this 

 same report. It is not necessary to read it. 



Mr. Macoun and I were especially assigned to this part of the 

 work and required to remain on the islands until the 21st of October, 

 after the completion of the pelagic sealing, to study the question 

 of the starvation of the pups. As a result of our investigation and 

 count we agreed that 16,000 pups had died of starvation in 1896 as 

 the result of the killing of their mothers at sea. I simply want to 

 emphasize these facts, because the relation of pelagic sealing to the 

 decline of the herd has been obscured and not given its full value. 



When I set up against this 750,000 females taken in pelagic seal- 

 ing, because we have a right to say that three-fourths of these 

 1,000,000 seals were females, the 128,000 yearlings alleged to have 

 been killed on land, 64,000 of which are claimed to be females, we 

 have a relation that is absurd. The fact that the herd has made 

 an immediate gain of 12.5 per cent in its stock of breeding females 

 in the second season of exemption from pelagic sealing proves pelagic 

 sealing to have been the cause of the herd's decline, and that the 

 removal of pelagic sealing has in like manner been an adequate 

 remedy for this decline. 



The Chairman. I wish it had been stopped long ago. 



