ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



91 



I liave the lionor to submit the following brief report on the condi 

 tioii of tlio fur seals and the general affairs of the seal islands for the 

 present season up to date. The large quantity of drift ice from the 

 north that remained melting around the island during the month of 

 May so chilled the waters as to delay the seals in their first arrival 

 twenty days later than usual. We were able to make the first drive for 

 native food May 23. 



As soon as the water became warmer they arrived more rapidly, so 

 that by the 10th of June they were plentiful enough to proceed with the 

 taking them for skins with as much dispatch as the number of men 

 employed could do so, and up to August 2 there had been 79,400 salted, 

 including 4,852 left over from 1875 of animals taken for food for natives. 



The account is as follows : 



Seal skins shipped as per certificates : 



July 27... 55,538 



September 26 24, 322 



Total 79, 860 



Showing a difference between the counting when salted and when 

 delivered of 159 less skins. 



In my report dated October 11, 1875, for reasons therein set forth, I 

 recommended that the number of seals to be taken on this (St. Paul) 

 island be limited to 70,000 instead of 90,000 as heretofore, but receiving 

 no authority to do so the matter was left to the discretion of their agent 

 by the Alaska Commercial Company, and so well satisfied was he of 

 the necessity of a reduction in the quota that he decided to take onlv 

 80,000. 



The weather proved very favorable for the seals until July 10, when 

 heavy rains fell, accompanied with high winds, and it has continued 

 with little variation up to date. This, occurring as it did just at the 

 time the females were leaving their young, has resulted in a much greater 

 loss ot young seals than usual. 



The condition of the dii¥erent classes of seals as they have returned 

 to the island shows that the scarcity of full-grown breeding males still 

 continues, the proportion on the rookeries being 1 to 17 females; this, in 

 accordance with the result of my observation, should be 1 to 10 females. 

 Where the females are so greatly in excess they fail of being impreg- 

 nated for their young during their first heat and go over until their 

 second heat, when the old males have nearly all left the island and 

 herd with the younger males on the hauling grounds. As their period 

 ot gestation is a year, they bear their youiig a month later, which gives 

 it that less time to mature strength for following the mother to sea at 

 the end of the season. 



It is particularly observable this year that a very large number of 

 the young seals have been produced a month later than formerly, and 

 they are still hovering on the rookeries with their mothers, too young 

 to go into the water. The taking of 80,000 instead of 90,000 this year 

 leaves 10,000 more 5-year-olds to increase the breeding males, but as 

 these will not mature for service on the breeding ground until two years 



