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information on th, numbers«of Uichard's -seals.and the exteht
of the annual kill is very sCanty. It is reported tnat soue thousands
of them live in -L -Je Copper hiver delta in te south of Alaska.
It is also believed that during the.pupping period the number of •
those seals along the British Columbia coast is as high as 35,000. «
There is no ship-based hunting for these seals. Hunting of ,
them
by local residents takes place mainly alonr; the coasts of Alaska
and British Columbia; It is known that
22,000 seals wore taken annually durini:
latter region the annual kill from 1954
3,000 and 5,000.
Island Seal, or Antur
in the former region up to
the peried 1952-5 . 5; in the
to 1 964 fluctuated between
• . The Soviet investigator A. N. Belkin (1967) has described,
as ,a new independent species, the island seal or antur, Phoca insu-
laris sp. nova,
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special Pacific
which was classified by K. K, Chapskii (1967) às a.
form of the common seal l'hoca vitulina, living in
the Kurile Islands and some other parts of the Pacific Ocean. Among
its distinctive external features the most characteristic is itu
colourin• (Fig. 16).
The basic colour of the.back is black, with
white oval rings measuring several centimetres across scattered.
over it.
Among the rings light-coloured spots and stries appear.
The general pattern of rings and spots reminds one of a bed of
flowers. -
The belly is generally lighter in colour than the back.
Half of the muzzle of adults is light-coloured, with a large white
spot under each eye.• The sears' head is ma,,sive, witli a high .
frontal bulge; the muzzle is broad, and bluntly truncated in front.
'2he colourin:f; àf new-born pups, which are covereo wrth short and
fairly-stiff hair, in similar to that of the aoults..
moult of the pups takes place within the uterus.
The zoological body length of adult males varies from 185
to 200 cm,'averaging 193 cm; that of adult females varies from 160
to 204 cm, averaing 160 cm. The body w,_ifvht of mules is 110-160
oF adults
kg, and that of females 70-145 kg. The weiht of the hide with
blubber attached, .dependini; on their size and statu of nutrition,
varies f -rom 30 to 60 kg. The length of flow -born pups is over 90
cm; their body weight is 11 to 15 kg, and the weight of their -
hide withblubber attached is 4.5 kg.,
,he first