274 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



or deep-sea, hunting, and the only remedy therefor is its immediate 

 suppression. 



There are but few months in the year when seals are not pursued and 

 killed in the sea by all the devices that the ingenuity of man has 

 invented. Hunters follow them from the time they leave the islands in 

 December until they return in May or June, and not content with what 

 they destroy in the open sea, with a brutal disregard for every interest 

 except their own, hover about the islands a few miles offshore and 

 watch for an opportunity, under cover of night or dense fog, to raid tlie 

 rookeries. 



It is useless to talk of a 3-mile limit or any other limit in the open 

 sea. A hundred sealing schooners, restricted only by such limits, may 

 practically destroy the seals in one season, Tlie claim that there should 

 be a closed season on the islands during the breeding months, to wit, 

 June and July, is the most absurd of all the propositions made. This 

 is the time when the skins of the young male seals are the most valu- 

 able and most easily secured, and I am of opinion that under proper 

 restrictions prescribed by the Government no harm can come to the 

 breeding rookeries by the practice now adopted during this period, but, 

 on the contrary, that this great industry will be built up and perpetu- 

 ated thereby. Even in the condition of t!ie hauling grounds this year 

 the killing of male seals on the islands did not injure the breeding 

 herds, and more could have been taken with the same result. The num- 

 bers to be taken from time to time should, within certain limits, be left 

 to the discretion of the agent in charge, who need not necessarily be a 

 scientist, but should have a knowledge of the laws and conditions that 

 govern the propagation of animal life. 



The question is often asked "Where do the seals go when they leave 

 the islands?" and some writers have attempted to throw a chmd of 

 mystery over the answer; but where can we find better evidenc<^ than 

 that furnished by the pelagic hunters? They cruise about the islands 

 and passes of the Aleutian Archipelago and follow the seals as they go 

 out to feed along the fishing banks on our western coast as far south 

 as Cape St. Lucas, and returning in the spring, they hunt them all tlie 

 way along this coast and into the Bering Sea. The number of seals 

 taken every spring by the hunters in the open sea has increased to such 

 enormous ])roportions that the skins are known to commerce as the 

 spring catch, and are advertised and sold accordingly. 



In procuring this spring catch great damage is done to seal life, for 

 it is in the spring that the cows are so easily approached and killed, 

 being less active and unable to travel as rapidly as the males, owing 

 to their being heavy with young. 



When male seals are killed on the islands, it is a common thing to 

 find bullets and buckshot in many of them, wliich shows that even the 

 most active were not able to escape the rifle of the hunter. 



Many of the hunters admit the fact that by far the greater number 

 of seals killed at sea are lost. Some assert that only one in fifteen is 

 secured, while others claim that not more than six out of seven of all 

 that are shot are lost. Although I conversed with many who were 

 well posted on this subject, I failed to find one who would deny that the 

 number of skins secured by the hunters was very nuich less than the 

 number lost. 



Interested parties claim that the cows do not travel far from the 

 islands in search of food; that those killed at sea are nearly all barren, 

 and that their destruction does not affect the condition of the rookeries. 

 lu reply to this I have to say that it is susceptible of proof that cows 



