Northern Fur Seals

“Every other year members of Seattle's marine mammal laboratory travel to the Pribilof islands to estimate how many pups are born. Scientist rod towell has been a part of the counts since 1992. He said the difference at the rookeries on st. Paul is striking. ‘i'm not going to say it was full coverage, but it looked like a moving carpet in a sense,'... He estimates the seals are covering about half as much land as they did on his first trip to the island. The cause of the decline towell said is a mystery. ‘There hasn't been commercial pressure on st. Paul island since 1984,'... Towell believes a different research project may be the key to solving this mystery. Every year since the late 2000s, the team has tagged fur seal pups on st. Paul and st. George islands for a new project. Towell thinks that data will help pinpoint where the population is suffering most and if there are big variations in the numbers of pups born each year.”

“To him [Dustin Jones, a 24-year-old aleut and son of a sea lion hunter], the scene at the rookery confirmed what his grandfather had been warning the local government about all those years. ‘He knew the seals were decreasing,' Jones said. The latest figures, based on seal counts taken in the animals' summer habitats on Pribilof beaches, would prove him right. A population that may have once numbered two million to three million in the 19th century--and saw a 20th-century high of 2.1 million in 1951--had slid to about 688,000. ‘This is just empty,' Jones said, as he tucked away his spotting scope and prepared to drive to another beach. ‘It's unbelievable. they're usually just packed all the way up the grass.'”

“Native communities in the islands are hanging in the balance. our native aleut ancestors once depended on the fur seal trade only to be told they would be shermen in a new era in the Pribilofs... We're now impacted by the precipitous decline of both seal and fish populations on our productive home islands. Nobody can say for sure what's causing the declines. We know that the productive waters off the Pribilofs draw heavy shing from the Pollock industry, which affects prey species for birds and seals.”

“It is mid-July, the peak of the breeding season in the Pribilof Islands, 500 miles west of the alaska mainland. Cold, dusky fog rolls in from the Bering Sea and shrouds the rookery. Barnyard noises emanate from thousands of dark, wet humps. Occasionally the chorus of bleats, barks and roars suddenly swells, whirlpools of movement spread with explosive energy and the rookery goes on full alert...Sst. Paul Island, the largest in the archipelago, is home to nearly one million of the animals. The Bering Sea provides vast quantities of small schooling shes and squid eaten by the seals. Fur seals of all ages use the island's shoreline for everything from mating, to rearing young, to simply surviving unscathed.”

“Government biologists ended the commercial harvests on St. George in 1973 and began a long-term program to monitor the island. A ferocious public campaign against killing the seals, combined with shrinking markets for their fur and the lapse of the 1957 treaty, would end the commercial harvest altogether in the Pribilofs by 1984. native residents have since been allowed to kill a small number of juvenile male seals for food.”

“Near the end of July and in the early part of august, the harems begin to break up.... the exodus begins in earnest in October and reaches a peak in November. By the end of the year the snow-covered beaches are usually deserted. Singly and in small groups the fur seals make their way through the passes of the Aleutian islands, dispersing over a wide area of the north Pacfic, as far west as the Asiatic coast and as far south as the latitudes of southern California and central Japan.”

“From the crest of Hutchinson Hill, on st. Paul Island in the Pribilofs, we could see spread before us the largest breeding colony of fur seals in existence and, incidentally, the greatest assemblage of wild animals to be seen in such a limited area from anyone point in the world. thousands of dark, moving bodies all but covered the semicircular mile of seal breeding beach bordering Northeast Point. they numbered at least 100,000, though the view encompassed only two of 21 named breeding grounds, or rookeries. in the light of our population studies to date, we estimate that the Pribilof herd numbers about one and a half million seals. its size now remains generally constant, and each year scienti cally harvested furs yield the United States government more than one-eighth the sum paid for all Alaska. as we looked out over the vast swarm of seals and listened to the chorus of bellowing and bleating carried aloft on the fresh sea breeze, we found it dif cult to believe that forty years ago their ancestors wavered at the brink of extermination.”

“After extended diplomatic negotiations and a long series of ineffectual bilateral agreements, the United States, Great Britain (for Canada), Japan, and Russia concluded a convention on 7 July 1911, for the protection of the fur seals of the north Pacific. Pelagic sealing was prohibited except by aborigines with primitive weapons. Each country with fur seal rookeries agreed to share 30 percent of its annual take of sealskins- Canada and Japan each to receive 15 percent of the sealskins from the Pribilof islands and the 15 percent of those from the commander islands; and Canada, and the United States each to receive 10 percent of the pelts from Robben island.”

“January 22 — Four hundred seals are reported hauled up under Hutchinson Hill. natives were sent to secure them.January 26 — two hundred and one seals were killed at northeast Point.January 27 — natives sent in boats to sea lion rock, succeeded in killing 180 seals.april 28 — the rst bull of the year hauled out at tolstoi rookery to-day.may 7 — ten bulls are on Zapadni and 6 on reef Point.may 10 — one hundred bulls are reported at northeast Point; a large number in the water.may 21 — the rst killing for food was made on sea lion rock, 131 seals.June 6 — the north end and middle part of lukanin show fully as many seals in sight as last year; while the western end does not make so good a showing.June 10 — the rst cow arrived on the reef on the 5th. the rst pup was born to-day.June 11 — the rst drive for the quota was made from the reef, yielding 574 skins.”

“the fur seal is well known to have been formerly abundant on the western coast of North America, as far south as California, but the exact southern limit of their range i have been unable to determine... although at one time abundant on the California coast, they are by no means numerous there now, having been nearly exterminated by the sealers.”

“Pelagic [open sea] sealing began about 1868, reached a peak in 1892, and declined to near zero by 1910. the eet, roughly three hundred boats total, is believed to have killed as many as 75,000 fur seals per year from 1870 to 1910. most of those killed at sea were pregnant females. the second decline was detected in the 1880s and was well documented. By 1910 the Pribilof herd had fallen to about 10% of its 1867 level.”

“Alaska fur seals are unique throughout the world. their availability in Alaska was a large factor in the decision in 1867 to purchase Alaska... shortly after the purchase of Alaska the 41st congress (1870-1) recognized the importance of the fur seal industry by making the Pribilof islands a reservation and giving a 20-year exclusive concession to a private Aan Francisco company named the alaska commercial co.”

“On the coast of California, many beaches were found fronting gullies, where seals in large numbers formerly gathered; and as they there had plenty of ground to retreat upon, the sealers sometimes drove them far enough back to make sure of the whole herd, or that portion of them the skins of which were desirable.”

“At sea the sea bears feed on fish and shellfish; they have a cry like the bleating of a sheep. they pass northward into the Kamchatkan sea through the straits between the different groups of the Aleutian islands, especially through Unimak Pass... From one to one hundred and fty females have been observed with one sikatchi (adult male), the number depending entirely on the courage of the male. the sikatch is the unrestricted lord, the guardian and protector of his harem.”