
Age studies based on tooth samples recovered during three 
seasons from the killing fields indicated that slightly more than one-third 
of the animals classified as 3-year-olds by the early age-length standards 
are actually 4-year-olds, and some of them are 2- and 5-year-olds. 
Table 21.--Composition of the Pribilof kill, 1950-52. 
[Percentege in each age class] 
Ls a cre a Se ES a 





According to body ent thle aunee die According to tooth-age readings 
Age 1950 1951 1952 Mean 1950 1951 1952 Mean 
2 3 3 2 3 1 1 2 1 
3 93 89 93 91 65 59 61 62 
£4 4 8 5 6 33 39 34 35 
5 1 1 1 1 1 dji 3 2 
is pe ele ih RAR I RT: ET es OE 


=e > —_—e | 
1/ "Field length" according to the stendards of 1918. 
2/ In 1951 the sealers were instructed to raise the length limit to 
include 46-inch animals. 
Why the 1913-18 standards do not fit the seals today is an 
unanswered question. The discrepancy may represent a real decrease in 
the average size of the bachelor seal in response to an increasingly 
crowded population, or it may simply represent differences between the 
sampling and measuring tecmmiques of 1913-18 and today. | 
-56- 
