460 



ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



steady annual decrease is to be found outsiide the islands, and as there 

 is only one known cause to which the decrease can be attributed, the 

 almost unanjnious verdict of civilization is that the indiscriminate 

 slaughter of stals by the pelagic sealer is the principal cause of the 

 decrease in the herds. 



From my own knowledge of the situation, gained by an experience 

 of two seasons on the islands, I have no doubt whatever as to the cause 

 of the decrease, for one has only to looli at the official returns of the 

 pelagic catch for 1894 to see at a glance that however numerous the 

 seals may have been in 1884 they could not stand the drain made upon 

 them for the past ten years without showing it. 



From the best information obtainable it appears that the pelagic 

 sealers secured 142,000 seal skins in 1894. The official figures from 

 the American and British customs show that 122,000 skins were landed 

 on the Pacific Slope, and there is good ground for the belief that the 

 remainder were landed in Japan or Eussian ports and shipped to 

 London via the Suez Canal. 



It is admitted on all sides that 70 per cent of the catch w.ere females, 

 mostly mother seals in young or in milk, whose death in either case 

 meant the death of two seals, for it is well known that when a mother 

 in milk is killed at sea her pup dies on the rookery for want of sus- 

 tenance. 



I do not make the statement of the death of the pups from starvation 

 recklessly; there is positive proof of it. 



In the latter part of August, 1894, when the first dead pups of the 

 season appeared on the breeding grounds, I made daily visits to the 

 rookeries and found hundreds of dead pups that had died of starvation. 



Hundreds yet alive were so wasted, weak, and feeble they could with 

 difficulty drag themselves over the rocks, and would not attempt to get 

 out of the way when approached. 



Between September 15 and 20 the Treasury agent on St. George 

 counted the dead pups on all the accessible portions of the rookeries 

 upon which he could climb without disturbing the seals, and, estimat- 

 ing the number not seen to be in proportion to those found, there were 

 4,110 dead pups on St. George Island. 



The same method was followed on St. Paul, and the rookeries visited 

 and dead pups actually counted on them are shown in the following 

 table : 



Tolstoi was not visited, and, as only the accessible portions of the 

 rookeries could be reached, I consider I am below rather than above 

 the mark when I put the number of dead pups on both the islands, in 

 1894, at 20,000. 



One sight of the rookeries when the pups are dying by the hundred 

 is enough to convince anyone of the truth of the claim made by the 

 Treasury agents, that it is because of starvation, owing to the deatli of 

 their mothers at sea, that so many pups die in August and September. 

 There is no difSculty whatever in telling the difference between starv- 



