On page 10 of your testimony, you indicate that the pelagic sealing by Interior involved the shooting and capturing of 824 seals in 1968, and another 3,586 were lost.

Would you supply the committee with the documentation of that? Miss HERRINGTON. I have the photocopy of the report with me.

Mr. POTTER. The other has to do with the statement on page 19. You indicate that the State of Oregon employs a man to shoot all seals on sight.

I would very much like to have whatever evidence you can supply to the committee on this point at your convenience.

Miss HERRINGTON. We will be glad to do so.

Mr. POTTER. That is all.

(The information referred to follows:)

Mrs. A. BURKHOLDER,
Portland, Oreg.

FISH COMMISSION, Portland, Oreg., March 9, 1971.

DEAR MS. BURKHOLDER: You recently wrote to us concerning the seal control program of the Fish Commission in the Columbia River. This program is authorized by ORS 506.341. This statute requires that the commission shall pay as bounty not less than $5 nor more than $25 to any person who delivers to it within 60 days evidence of a seal having been killed. It also provides that the commission may enter into an agreement with any person for the purpose of taking seals. In 1970 the Fish Commission at a public hearing acted to reduce the bounty payment to $5, the minimum amount that can be provided consistent with the law. It did not at that time attempt to change a contract with the seal hunter which had earlier been awarded. This contract provides that the commission pay $40 per day to an individual to hunt seals and harass them in the Columbia River so that they leave the river during commercial fishing seasons.

The public meeting on February 22 was to consider awarding a seal hunting contract for 1971. At the meeting no individuals appeared to oppose the killing of seals. Because the commissioners were concerned about the attitude of the public, they delayed making a decision at this meeting. No contract has been awarded to date.

Thank you very much for sending us your comments on the seal control program in the Columbia River. We will bring your letter to the attention of the commissioners.

Sincerely,

THOMAS E. KRUSE, Assistant State Fisheries Director.

EXHIBIT Q-DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC REPORT-FISHERIES No. 617 "FUR SEAL INVESTIGATIONS, 1968" PUBLISHED DECEMBER 1970

We saw considerable numbers of seals in the Bering Sea along and outside the Continental Shelf from Unalaska Island east to Unimak Pass from 1 to 15 August.

The following surveys are not shown on any of the figures:

ABUNDANCE

The numbers of seals sighted, collected, wounded and lost, and killed and lost were 1,078, 374, 39, and 26 off Washington and 1,509, 456, 27, and 78 in Alaska waters. Tables C-12 and C-13 give numbers and percentages of seals in these categories for 1958-68.

Tables C-14 to C-17 show the number of seals seen and collected off Washington and in Alaska waters in relation to effort by 10-day periods.

Seals were seen in groups of one to nine animals off Washington (table C-18) and in groups of one to five in Alaska waters (table C-19), Seals travel alone more frequently in the spring and summer in Alaska waters than in winter off Washington.

Incomplete data on six seals taken in Alaska waters are not included in any of the following tables.

AGE AND SEX

Seals collected at sea are considered to have passed into the next higher age group on 1 January (Standing Scientific Committee of the North Pacific Fur Seal Commission, 1963). The ages of seals collected in November and December 1967, however, were increased 1 year to permit comparisons with seals taken after 1 January 1968. Thus, seals of the same year class were given the same age in all tables in this report.

Table 42 gives the age and sex of seals collected off Washington and Alaska in 1967-68. About 50 percent of the females killed were from 1 to 7 years old. Seventy-four yearling seals (1967 year class) were collected January-February 1968 for continuing studies of these animals during their first year of life, a period when fur seals suffer the greatest mortality. For example, general body condition was appraised by measuring the subcutaneous layers of fat at their thickest points over the sternum and ventral to the pelvic region (table C-20). Additional information on these yearlings is given elsewhere in this report.

TAG RECOVERIES

In 1968, we took 7 males in ages 2 to 16 years and 31 females between the ages of 1 and 16 years that had tags or other marks (table 43). No Soviet tags were found attached to seals collected in 1968.

LENGTHS AND WEIGHTS

Mean lengths and weights are given for pregnant, post partum, and nonpregnant females collected in 1967-68 in tables C-21 to C-26, and for males in tables C-27 and C-28.

Sex, length, and weight were not determined for two very small embryos, and the data have not yet been obtained for 17 fetuses on loan. Crown rump rather than total length measurments were taken from 24 male and 33 female fetuses because of their small size, and these fetuses were weighed in the laboratory rather than at sea because accurate weights could not be obtained on a rolling and pitching vessel. Table C-29 gives crown-rump length and weight after preservation in formalin.

Table C-30 shows measurements of total length and of the weight of unpreserved fetuses.

REPRODUCTION

Table C-31 shows the reproductive condition of female seals collected by month in 1967-68. Five primiparous 4-year-olds were the youngest and one multiparous 21-year-old was the oldest among pregnant seals collected in 1967–68.

The pregnancy rates of fur seals collected in the eastern Pacific Ocean from 1958 to 1966 were tested to see if they differed by area and year of collection. The largest numbers of seals were collected off California (36.5 percent) and in the Bering Sea (28.4 percent).

Mr. DINGELL. Miss Herrington, the committee is grateful to you for your very helpful presentation this morning.

There was a great deal of work in your preparation and we are very grateful to you.

Miss HERRINGTON. Thank you for the opportunity to speak for the people.

We have a group of petitions here in large numbers, perhaps in the thousands, and we would like to present them to the committee.

I also have numerous fact sheets and other statements in support of our position.

Mr. DINGELL. Very well. If you will deliver them to the staff, the Chair will direct the staff to review those for purposes of possible insertion into the record.

(The documents referred to are in the committee files. A few representative items follow:)

FACTSHEET ON THE PRIBILOF SEAL "HARVEST"

1. The Commerce Department claims that the size of the Pribilof seal herd has increased from 200,000 in 1911 to about 1.3 million today. It is alleged that this is the herd's optimum size and that a much larger herd would result in overpopulation and starvation.

In fact, the natural size of the herd is over 5 million, according to an official account in the Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 24, pp. 480-85, written by Seton Thompson, Chief, Division of Alaska Fisheries, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1948, this herd numbered about 4 million. Thus, the 1.3 million figure, even if accurate, represents a depletion of about 75%. There are also strong indications that the 1.3 million figure is grossly inflated, particularly since it includes hundreds of thousands of baby seals, 85% of which die before they reach 3 years of age. The herd is now in such serious trouble that this year the quota was vastly reduced from 60,000 seals in previous years to about 42,000. Still, only 32,000 seals were available for "harvesting", 25% below the quota's allowance. There seems little doubt that, with the Commerce Department's present management policies, the herd is headed for extinction.

2. Commerce claims that only "surplus" bachelor seals are killed and that females and pups are "not molested". This is constantly stressed in the Department's press and information releases.

Actually, in recent years, close to a quarter of a million females were harvested, almost every one of which was either pregnant or nursing a pup. When a nursing female is killed, its baby starves to death. Thus, 250,000 babies have also been indirectly killed. This is why the herd is presently in such a serious state of depletion. As late as 1968, some 13,000 female seals were killed, over 11,000 of which were known to be nursing mothers. (See attached documentation from U.S. Department of Interior for 1968).

3. Commerce claims that the Harris-Pryor Ocean Mammal Protection Act will mean the extinction of the Alaskan fur seal because the 4-nation treaty banning pelagic sealing will be abrogated by the U.S.

Just the opposite is true. The Harris-Pryor Bill maintains the current treaty while giving the State Department the mandate to bring all other nations into a more extensive treaty which would protect not only the fur seal but all other ocean mammals as well. At the same time, the Bill gives special recognition to our obligations under the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention and provides for Canada and Japan to continue to receive their 15% each of the annual quota, or a commensurate financial compensation. The only change is that the 70% "taken" for the U.S. market would not be killed. This can be done while maintaining the treaty intact until 1976, after which time it is scheduled to expire under the original terms of the agreement.

ANNUAL REPORT OF SEALING OPERATIONS, 1968, PRIBILOF ISLANDS, ALASKA PREPARED BY STAFF OF MARINE MAMMAL RESOURCES PROGRAM, DECEMBER 31, 1968 HARVEST OF FEMALE SEALS AND PRODUCTION OF FEMALE SEALSKINS

SEALSKIN CURING OPERATIONS

At St. Paul 49 men were employed in the skin-curing plant and 6 on carcass disposal; 17 performed both functions at St. George. Three blubbering beams were removed on St. Paul to install the experimental fleshing machine. Pre-season calculations indicated as large a harvest as the previous year. There was only one reduction in manpower on St. Paul but a larger reduction on St. George from the previous year. Minor adjustments were made in employee assignments to accomplish the skin-curing. Robert Booth, an employee of The Fouke Company, was assigned for a brief period to St. Paul as a technical specialist and quality control inspector. SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT FOR SKIN-CURING WORKERS

EXHIBIT 0-FISHERIES No. 617 "FUR SEAL INVESTIGATIONS, 1968," PUBLISHED DECEMBER 1970

** possible magnitude of error in the number of males of each age killed in 1968. Differences between adjusted and nonadjusted age compositions were

nonadjusted number. Adjusted numbers of seals killed are not used in any of the calculations in this report because the data are similar for ages 3, 4, and 5, and it is not known if the adjusted or the nonadjusted age composition is more representative of the true age composition.

FEMALES

The 13,335 females killed on the Pribilof Islands in 1968 were considered excess to the number needed to maintain the production of pups at the present level. St. Paul Island contributed 10,544 females, and St. George Island, 2,791. Right upper canine teeth from 30 percent of the females killed were used to estimate the age composition of the total kill (tables A-5 to A-12).

TABLE 2.-UNADJUSTED AND ADJUSTED KILL OF MALE SEALS, PRI BILOF ISLANDS, ALASKA, JUNE 26 TO AUG. 5, 1968

1 We did not include 130 6-year-old males taken on the Pribilof Islands June 26 to Aug. 5, nor 307 males killed on St. Paul Island Aug. 3 and 5 because the data for these seals were incomplete.

TABLE 3.-NUMBER OF FEMALE SEALS TO BE KILLED AND THE NUMBER ACTUALLY TAKEN DURING A SPECIAL KILL OF FEMALE SEALS, PRI BILOF ISLANDS, ALASKA, AUGUST 1968

The kill began about 6 a.m. Monday through Friday on St. Paul Island and about 9 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on St. George Island. All females killed were taken from hauling grounds, and all females in the drive were killed regardless of age or size. When the kill of males ended 2 August on St. Paul Island and 5 August on St. George Island, 1,233 and 173 females, respectively, had been taken. The relative size of each rookery was used as a guide in killing the remaining 11,594 females needed to achieve a quota of 13,000 (table 3). A special effort was made not to exceed the quotas on Reef, Polovina, and Staraya Artil, three rookeries where females are extremely accessible. Table 4 shows the kills of females from year classes 1943-67.

AFFIDAVIT

In July of 1970 I, Thomas S. Bywaters, with Victor Losick went to the Pribilof Islands to record on film the seal slaughter which is carried out annually by the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries.

We spent ten days on St. Paul Island, observing the horrible massacre and the life of the Aleut native colony on the Island.

While on St. Paul, we filmed the brutal, inhumane killings, the rookeries where the baby seals are born and the bulls and females breed, the town and the blubber plant. We were not allowed to film interviews with the natives nor with the Government employees (although an NBC crew which came after us was given carte blanche to film anything and everything).