File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (18161093791).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo15amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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THE MAKING OF A FUR-SEAL CENSUS By George Archibald Clark (Of Leland Stanford University) THE really important practical problem in connection with the fur-seal herd of the Pribilof Islands has always been that of enumera- tion. How many animals are there? Is the herd increasing or diminishing? What is the rate either way? What number of yoimg males can safely be taken each year? What breeding re- serve should be set aside? These ques- tions can be answered ef- fectively only by a more or less exact cen- sus of the herd. In making a fur-seal census ;s'ou cannot, as in the case of human com- munities, go to the head of the household. The harem master is not an approacha- ble being and will not discuss family affairs with you. You go within his circle, if at all, at your peril. You can stand on the neighbor- ing cliffs and looking down upon his household observe many things of in- terest; but this will not tell you whether all his wives are at home or how many children he has. The children hide in
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Bull fur seal, Gorbatcli Rookery, St. Paul Island the crevices of the rocks and most of the mothers are away at sea feeding. It is easy to count the harem masters. Each one is l)ig and aggressive and is always at home. As you come into his range of vision he rises up to greet you like a bristling question mark. The fiu'-seal families can therefore be easily covmted. It is even possible to count the individual fe- males on many scattered breeding areas, and this fact has been uti- lized at times to gain an approximate enumeration, an average harem lieing thus obtained which could he applied to breeding areas where counts of individuals were impossi- ble. The fur-seal census how- ever, does not rest finally with the adult animals; it rests in the young of the season, or the fur-seal pups. Although destined to spend most of its life in the water and to brave all kinds of vveather, the fur-seal pup in the beginning is timid of the water and keeps away from it dur- ing the first month or six weeks of its life.

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