858 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



SITES OF ABANDONED ROOKERIES. With reference to the amount of ground covered by the 

 seals, when first discovered by the Russians, I have examined every foot of the shore line of both 

 islands where the bones, polished rocks, &c., might be lying on any deserted areas. Since then, 

 after carefully surveying the new ground now occupied by the seals, and comparing this area 

 with that which they have deserted, I feel justified in stating that for the last twelve or fifteen 

 years, at least, the fur-seals on these islands have not diminished, nor have they increased as a 

 body to any noteworthy degree; and throughout this time the breeding grounds have never been 

 disturbed except at that brief but tumultuous interregnum during 1868; and they have been 

 living since in a perfectly quiet and natural condition. Without some stop-brake upon this seal- 

 life, with a million of young born every year during the last ten or fifteen seasons, at least, the 

 annual taking of one hundred thousand males would not, could not, in the slightest degree retard 

 that increase which would set in at once, were it not for this check on the high seas aforesaid. 



CAN THE NUMBER BE INCREASED? What can be done to promote their increase? We can- 

 not cause a greater number of females to be born every year than are born now ; we do not touch 

 or disturb these females as they grow up and live; and never will we, if the law and present 

 management is continued. We save double we save more than enough males to serve; nothing 

 more can be done by human agency; it is beyond our power to protect them from their deadly 

 marine enemies as they wander into the boundless ocean searching for food.* 



In view, therefore, of all these facts, I have no hesitation in saying, quite confidently, that 

 under the present rules and regulations governing the sealing interests on these islands, the 

 increase or diminution of the seal-life thereon will amount to nothing in the future; that the seals 

 will exist, as they do exist, in all time to come a* about the same number and condition recorded 

 in this report. To test this theory of mine, I here, in the record of my surveys of the rookeries, 

 have put stakes down which will answer, upon those breeding grounds, as a correct guide as to 

 their present, as well as their future, condition, from year to year. 



SURVEYING THE CONDITION OF THE ROOKERIES. During the first week of inspection of 

 some of those earliest arrivals, the " seecatchie," or full-grown males, will frequently take flight 

 to the water when approached; but these runaways quickly return. By the end of May, however, 

 the same seals will hardly move to the right or left when you attempt to pass through them. 

 Then, two weeks before the females begin to come in, and quickly after their arrival, the organi- 

 zation of the fur-seal rookery is rendered entirely indifferent to man's presence on visits of quiet 

 inspection, or anything else, save their own kind, and so continues during the rest of the season. 



I have called attention to the singular fact, that the breeding-seals upon the rookeries and 

 hauling grounds are not affected by the smell of blood or carrion arising from the killing fields, or 

 the stench of blubber fires which burn in the native villages. This trait is beautifully illustrated, 

 and conclusively, by the attitude of those two rookeries near the village of Saint Paul ; for the 

 breeding ground on this spit, at the head of the lagoon, is not more than 40 yards from the great 

 killing grounds to the eastward ; being separated from those spots of slaughter, and the seventy 

 or eighty thousand rotting carcasses thereon, by a slough not more than 10 yards wide. These 

 seals can smell the blood and carcasses, upon this field, from the time they land in the spring until 



*A great deal of speculation in regard to the probable increase of diminution of the seal-life would end, if it were 

 possible to pen these animals up and feed them, like hogs, on the Pribylov Islands ; hnt that is theoretically and 

 practically out of the question. In the one case granted, for the sake of argument, that we could secure for them at 

 the start the ten or twelve million tons of fish required as subsistence in a single year, what should we do with them 

 when the snow and sleet of winter would render sea-bathing, on a large scale, imperative for their well-being? We 

 can neither feed nor can we ever control their movements in the slightest degree, with reference to their protection 

 in the sea or increase on the land, beyond what we are DOW doing. I trust that no man's desire, no matter how wort'jy 

 his ambition, will ever got him or the seals into trouble on this score. 



