- 12 - 
three islands. Animals occasionally seen among the main Hawaiians may 
« 
represent stragglers at the periphery of this cycling, or those driven 
off course by some weather, wind, or current condition. The mean ad- 
justed percentage of tagged adult group observed per census at Kure may 
be a better representation of the actual number of adult group seals 
* 
§ 
utilizing the atoll at any given time. Calculations using this figure 
suggest that the mean size of the adult group using Kure at any one time 
is 106. 
* • 
The large standard deviations obtained for all population calcula¬ 
tions emphasize the great variability in the data. All indications are 
that only a small percentage of the adult group utilizing Kure at a given 
time are on the beach on any given day. This, plus the evidence assembled 
in support of population turnover suggest that all estimates of the total 
number of Hawaiian monk seals based upon actual counts are low. The ad¬ 
justment factor lies somewhere between two and ten. Present data are in¬ 
sufficient to further refine the estimate. The true population size may 
explain the apparent dissolution of tagged seals into the population, 
when the rate of loss of tags seems low, and does not satisfactorily 
explain the disappearance of tagged animals. The postulated population 
size may also explain why it was, or may have been, possible to kill large 
numbers of monk seals in the middle of the last century (see Bailey, 1952; 
Kenyon and Rice, 1959). The apparently rapid comeback made by the species 
in the face of a low reproductive rate may be partly due to an increase 
in the frequency of censuses during the last ten years. Only an intensive 
program of tagging and recovery will answer the questions now raised con- 
