Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

got up to go he said, "Oh, by the way Laws, you should know that I don't like
having a pistol held to my head". Nevertheless we always got on quite well
and he used my Christian name for the first time. (Much later I came to know
him quite well, as Sir Miles and then Miles, and when he died he left me a
memento of those times). I was to be Base Leader of a team of five, but also
responsible for the messing arrangements for others at KEP. He agreed that we
should have a permanent cook at South Georgia and mentioned that there was
a clubroom there with billiard table etc. also there was a cinema at the nearby
whaling station, home to hundreds of whalers, and it was quite different from
any of the other bases.
On West Falkland, at Albemarle Harbour there was a former whaling
station that had been refurbished as a sealing station, by the South Atlantic
Sealing Company, with funding from the Colonial Development Corporation
(CDC). Its Manager was a chap called Peter Tilbrook. The company had
expected to make a success of the enterprise, which was based on killing sea
lions for their oil. In this they had been encouraged by a report, apparently
written by a desk-bound ‘scientist’ in Whitehall, who had never been near the
islands - nor did he have any special knowledge of seals. The best knowledge
available was based on the reports of Hamilton, the Government Naturalist,
who had earlier been with the ‘Discovery’ Investigations and had published two
substantial papers on the species in l936 and l939. He had carried out a
detailed count of the total sea lion pup production and, applying the results of
his work on the age structure of the population he had estimated that the total
population numbered almost 400,000. A population of this size would support
a small industry, it was thought. However, something had clearly been
happening to cause the population to decline, for the sealers' catches had not
come up to expectations.
To resolve the company’s serious financial situation, Tilbrook had
approached the Governor and Colonial Secretary about a license to take a
quota of fur seals. There were said to be substantial numbers in the islands and
their pelts provided a much more valuable product than sea lion blubber. The
government was interested, as the licenses would provide revenue in the form
of royalties, as was the case with the elephant seals at South Georgia. I was
therefore asked by the Governor to advise him, but did not feel able to advise
without first conducting a survey on the ground to assess the size and status of
the population. Peter Tilbrook agreed to take me around the coastline of the
islands to conduct a census, although it was somewhat late in the season for
best results. I was happy to take up the offer, because it was an opportunity to
see another species of seal in the field.
We therefore left Stanley at 5.30 am, ‘Camp time’, on 17 February after
spending the night on board one of the sealing company's two ships - the
Protector, a small grey wooden ship (formerly a minesweeper); the other, the
Golden Chance, was a very small North Sea drifter. Tilbrook was in command
of the small crew and Johnny Browning the Government Sealing Inspector was
aboard. It was a calm and sunny day, but heavy fog banks flowed in from the
Northwest as we cleared Mungeary Point, accompanied by numerous small
Commerson's dolphins, Cephalorhynchus commersonii, handsome in their black
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