
wera 8: ‘s f etme FP  Nee i ak 
: ‘ tare ae Boag zm. ae ie a elles a r Poe? ; 
Figure 11.--Bachelor fur seal wearing rubber necklace. Seal 2=3 
years old, weight 38 pounds; St. Paul Island, Alaska, 
July 27, 1947. 
and reported unfavorably upon at least one form of commercial stock marker. 
He recommended a cautery [chemical?], however, as being of possible value" 
(Hanna 1916: 5). 
(2) In 1941, on the morning of July 6, we attempted to mark a number of 
fur seals with ordinary white house paint. Our immediate purpase was to 
identify certain "rejects", that is, seals dismissed from sealing drives as 
untit for the commercial kill. Our ultimate purpose was to check on the 
recurrence of marked animals in the daily drives. kach of two workmen carried 
a bamboo pole about six feet long, at one end of which was tied a paint brush. 
A boy carried a pail of white paint. As each reject left the killing site and 
headed for the beach, a man gave chase andattempted to swipe it across the 
back with the brush. In pursuing the seal, the man was at times 300 paces 
from the killing site. The boy with the pail ran back and forth between the 
marking men in an attempt to keep their brushes wet with paint. The results 
were unsatisfactory. 
ie believe that it would be feasible to mark seals with a quick-drying 
enamel, The enamel would perhaps have a rubber base and would be sprayed 
from an atomizer. We are planning an experiment along these lines (fig. 12). 
Painting, harp seal, White Sea,-=-The painting of harp seals has been 
mentioned on p. 
Punching, northern fur seal, Alaska.--In 1947 we venturad.to mark pinnineds 
by the use of a leather punch. We did this in conjunction with a tagging 
operation to insure that, even though the tag might be lost later, the animal 
would remain marked (p. 10). | ie punched 20,000 fur seal pups of both sexes on 
21 
