Fur Seal Investigations, 1973

The National Marine Fisheries Service is responsible for conservation of the northern fur seal because of its role in harvesting the resource on St. Paul Island (Pribilof Islands) and because of terms set forth in the Interim Convention on Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals (1957) and its amending Protocol (1963). More recently, the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 have reinforced obligations of the National Marine Fisheries Service with respect to the northern fur seal. This report includes five summaries of research carried out on the northern fur seal by the National Marine Fisheries Service during field seasons in 1973 on the subjects of Management and Monitoring, Behavior, Physiology and Medicine, and Pelagic. The frontispiece shows San Miguel Island and Castle Rock; figures 1 and 2 give the locations of breeding grounds on the Pribilof Islands, and terms having special meanings in fur seal research are described in the glossary. In this report, "Pribilof Islands" includes St. Paul and St. George Islands, and, occasionally, Sea Lion Rock. "San Miguel Island" includes Castle Rock. Two of the five Pribilof Islands, Otter and Walrus, do not have fur seal rookeries.