Current Issue March 2014 magazine cover  Save 81% off the
newsstand price!  A Puzzle In the Pribilofs  On the remote
Alaskan archipelago, scientists and Aleuts are trying to find
the causes of a worrisome decline in fur seals  Gale-force winds
from the Bering Sea’s first fall storm scoured St. PaulIsland in
Alaska’s Pribilofs, a stunning archipelago of ancient volcanoes
and sweeping tundra 310 miles from the mainland. But amid the
thundering ten-foot waves and shattering spray, hundreds of
northern fur seals played with nimble abandon. Noses aloft,
flippers up, they bobbed in the swells, as buoyant and
nonchalant as birds on a thermal. They jostled, squirmed,
slammed into each other. Individual seals skimmed down breaking
waves like sleek brown torpedoes. Collapsing rollers revealed
glistening brown animals, some of them females returning to the
island to nurse after foraging 150 miles out to sea.  From This
Story  Onshore, the half mile of beach was alive with seals.
Youngsters tossed strands of kelp and wre