DECREASE OF SEALS FROM INJUDICIOUS HUNTING. 553 



flags and seals. Some days after, when the ice moved off from 

 the shore, several bulks of seals were found, but in such a putrid 

 state that they could not be handled. At the lowest calculation,'' 

 continues Mr. Carroll, " I make bold to state that not less than 

 from ten to twelve thousand pounds currency worth of seals' 

 pelts is lost to the country each sealing voyage [or season], by 

 the present system, carried on by the sealing masters and their 

 crews ! " The partial remedy that he suggests is that while no 

 man should have the right to take any Seals of which he is not 

 the owner as long as the owners watch over them, yet as soon 

 as the proper owners leave them the Seals should be free prop- 

 erty to any one who can take them away.* 



DECREASE IN THE NUMBER OF SEALS FROM INJUDICIOUS 



HUNTING. 



Formerly so numerous were the Seals commonly hunted in 

 the North Atlantic and Arctic waters (consisting chiefly of the 

 Harp or Greenland Seal), that for many years the annual de- 

 struction of hundreds of thousands seemed not in the least to 

 diminish their numbers, and as late as 1873 Mr. Carroll * gave 

 it as his opinion that they were actually on the increase at 

 the Newfoundland sealiug-grounds, an opinion concurred in by 

 other authorities. Here, indeed, their number seems unlirn- 

 -ited, but it is otherwise in the sealing-districts about Jan 

 May en and elsewhere at the various sealing-stations north of 

 the northern coast of Europe. As already detailed (see antea, 

 pp. 503-510), a marked decline began to be apparent as early as 

 1865 to 1870, which each succeeding year increased at an alarm- 

 ing rate. Attention was at once directed to the cause, which 

 was evidently overdestruction by the rival sealing-fleets of 

 England, Germany, and Norway, and ruinous and indiscrimi- 

 nate slaughter at improper seasons. The agitation of the mat- 

 ter which followed resulted, as already shown, in the enactment 

 of close-time acts for the protection of the Seals during the 

 period when the young are brought forth. The act on the part 

 of the English came into force in 1876, and soon after similar 

 legislative action was taken by the other interested govern- 

 ments. While a close-time must be favorable to the increase 

 of the Seals, or at least to the rnaintaiiiance of their present 



* Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, pp. S2-34. 

 tlbid., p. 36. 



