and muscular that the noose slides right off over the head. We find that 
it sometimes helps to use an aluminum pole to slip the noose over the 
animal, and this can also be used as a prod to turn or control its movements 
to some extent. Once the noose has been set one person takes a firm hold on 
the line and plants himself in the sand. It is easiest to work on a slope 
and keep the seal’s head pointed up the slope. No matter how much the seal 
struggles it is essential that the line be kept taut. These seals are quite 
strong and thrash about considerably, making it a real job to keep the noose 
set and the line taut. A favorite trick is to roll over and over, twisting 
the rope around their body or around your hand, and then it i3 quite hard 
to hold them. 
They seem to tire within a few minutes, and become a little easier to 
handle. I notice that they begin to breath much more heavily after a few 
minutes of this twisting. The person tagging them grabs a hind fin with one 
hand and pulls it toward him. It is then extremely important that the head 
be held taut as the animal is capable of turning around and biting the person 
holding the flipper. And they have been biting pieces off a two inch bamboo 
pole like it was a toothpick. Once I have a hold of a flipper with my left 
hand I try to hold it till the seal cuiets down and stops struggling, so that 
I can clinch the tag with the other hand. I am trying to apply the tags on 
the upper half of either flipper with the numbered side out, but this is not 
always possible. The flipper, when the seal is moving on land, is divided into 
an upper and lower portion, like the illustration, so that a tag on the lower 
