1968 Alaska Fur Seal Investigations

June 28, 1968

The year 1968 marks an important step in studies of the Pribilof Islands fur seal population.

Now, 13 years after we first began to reduce the seal population with the expectation that a smaller population would yield larger kills and more stability, we are ready to let it increase in size. The high population of the 1950s has been reduced and held at nearly the same level since 1963. An estimate of the mean kill of males from the year classes at this lower population level and the size of fluctuations to be expected in the kill will be determined from collections of data completed by 1972.