16 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA, 1909. 
bulls present in 1909. In that year 1,399 breeding bulls were 
engaged actively with harems. The average life of the breeding 
bull is five years after he begins full rookery service at eight years. 
As the herd would thus renew itself in five years, a yearly diminu- 
tion of one-fifth occurs and is necessary to be provided for. As the 
herd includes practically 1,400 breeding bulls, it would be necessary 
to insure that at least one-fifth of this number be provided five 
years hence, or 280 animals. 
During the season of 1909 there occurred 5,831 rejections of seals 
from the drives. Of these 1,740 were too large to be killed there- 
after and 4,091 too small to be killed or included in the breeding 
reserve. In addition to these there were a number of killables not 
driven at all, as on August 4 we discovered hauled among the cows 
on Tolstoi a drive of approximately 600 bachelors, the existence of 
which theretofore was unknown to the lessee. As the killing season 
closed on July 31, these animals could not be killed this season. 
When we consider that only 280 bulls are required to mature 
each year to maintain the herd of breeding bulls at its present num- 
bers and that at least 5,000 young males are believed to have survived 
the season, it can not be believed that the killing in 1909 was too 
close. 
We must now discuss the question whether killing in 1909 was 
as close as in 1889. In the latter year no record of the number of 
the seals released from the killing fields was made. It is therefore 
not possible to ascertain the percentage of seals killed in 1889, nor 
to compare critically the killing of that year with that of 1909, for 
which we have exact data. 
The main point of difference, however, between the methods 
practiced in the two years lies in the fact that regulations were in 
force in 1909 specially designed to prevent too close killing which 
were not in existence in 1889 and which in fact were not thought of 
in that year. Before any killing by the lessee was allowed in 1909 
2,000 young killable males were reserved for breeding by the agents 
and marked so that thereafter they would be readily discernible 
by the clubbers. This reservation of 2,000 represents 13 per cent of 
the quota allowed the lessee. So that, before the lessee took a single 
skin in 1909, the herd was safeguarded by a reservation of males 
equal to 13 per cent of the quota. Under such regulations as these 
it is impossible at the present time for killing to be too close, even if, 
after reserving these killables, the lessee “ swept the hauling grounds ” 
to secure its quota. It could not sweep them so clean as to eliminate 
this 13 per cent breeding reserve unless the marked seals themselves 
were killed, and there is plenty of evidence to show that these marked 
seals were carefully guarded when they appeared in the drives. 
