A Statement Submitted in Re the Fur-Seal Herd of Alaska: To the House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce
Henry W. Elliott
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(Forgotten Books, Dec. 4, 2017)
Excerpt from A Statement Submitted in Re the Fur-Seal Herd of Alaska: To the House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of CommerceWhat was and is the cause of this practical extinction of the virile male life on the breeding grounds of the Pribilof Islands?It is due wholly to the killing of all the young male seals that the lessees could annually find on the islands, first begun in 1896, in violation of regulations or the Carlisle rules of May 14, 1896, and then continued 11 to 1904, when the Hitchcock rules of May 1 were published, but w ich the lessees nullified completely by 1906, and continued to do so to the end of their lease, May 1, 1910.A plain statement of the facts which were given to Mr. F. H. Hitchcock, chief clerk of the Department of Commerce and Labor,' and upon which he ordered the Hitchcock rules of 1904, is of interest at this point, to wit: On January 8, 1904, I gave him the fol lowing analysis of the reason why he must step in at once and check that close killing of all the young male seals Which his agents then were permitting the lessees to take or face the complete extinction of the breeding male life on the islands by 1907 or 1908: On the seal island rookeries of St. Paul and St. George there were (i wrote thus) In 1872 - 1874 there were some breeding bulls and cows (primipares, multipares, and nubiles), showing a birth rate of pups.In 1890 this herd was reduced to some breeding bulls and about 420 000 cows (primipares, multipares, and nubiles), showing a birth rate of pups.In 1896 this herd was still further reduced to some bulls and about cows (primipares, multipares, and nubiles), showing a birth rate of pups.In 1903 this herd is reduced to some bulls and about cows (primipares, multipares, and nubiles), showing a birth rate of pups.These breeding bulls of 1903 are the survivors of those young males which were spared in 1890 and by the modus vivendi of 1891 - 1893, and thus allowed to grow up to the age of 6 years, and then take their places in 1894, 1895, and 1896 on the rookeries as 6 and 7 year old seecatchie.In 1894 and in 1895 a few hundred 4-year-olds may have escaped the club on the killing grounds and thus came in as 6 - year-olds in 1896 and 1897.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.