304 ANTTDAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1942 



SOUTHERN FUR SEAL 



The first cargo of seal skins and whale oil exported from the Falk- 

 land Islands was carried by Bougainville's ship, the Aigle, in 1766 

 (Boy son, 1924, p. 219). Although the history of southern sealing 

 during the ensuing decade is not very well known, there are indications 

 that some whalers took seals as well as whales at the Falkland Islands. 



When Port Egmont was evacuated by the British garrison in May 

 1774, 10 American sealing and whaling vessels were anchored in the 

 Falkland Islands (Boyson, 1924, p. 235). Fur seals were present in 

 such numbers on one of the smaller Falkland Islands that eight or 

 nine hundred of them were killed on one day (Dalrymple, 1775, pre- 

 face p. 9). The beaches of Saunders Island were reported by a 

 French sealer in 1778 to have been lined with fur seals and elephant 

 seals (Boyson, 1924, p. 235). 



British sealers did not begin taking fur seals on these southern rook- 

 eries until the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, but were 

 actively engaged in this fishery for at least 50 years thereafter. Shortly 

 after the signing of the general peace treaty between Great Britain 

 and the United States on September 3, 1783, the ship States sailed 

 from Boston for the Falkland Islands and on arrival there anchored 

 in States Harbor. For two years shore crews from this ship were 

 engaged in taking skins of fur seals and sea lions, and in boiling 

 out elephant seal oil. Thirteen thousand of the fur seal skins taken 

 on this cruise were landed in New York and then shipped to China 

 (Clark, 1887, p. 400). Subsequently, a number of vessels were out- 

 fitted in New England ports for this commercial enterprise. Among 

 these were vessels from New York and Boston, one of which, the brig 

 Betsei/t, returned to New York from the Falkland Islands in June 1793 

 with a full cargo of fur seal skins (Fanning, 1924, p. 13). Fanning 

 in 1797 (1924, p. 261) found the rocks at the northeast head of Beau- 

 chene Island literally covered with fur seals. By 1812, however, fur 

 seals had become scarce on all the larger Falkland Islands, but were 

 still present in considerable numbers on Steeple Jason Island (Boy- 

 son, 1924, pp. 83, 236). 



These adventurers sailed boldly in their small vessels to South 

 Georgia, some 1,200 miles east of Cape Horn, where fur sealing was 

 conducted with the same total disregard of the biological factors 

 involved in the perpetuation of the stocks of seals. In the fall of 

 1800, 17 vessels arrived at South Georgia, and during the ensuing sum- 

 mer the shore crews landed by these vessels killed 112,000 fur seals 

 (Fanning, 1924, p. 218). The corvette Aspasia of New York alone 

 brought back 57,000 fur seal skins. James Weddell in 1823 (1825, 

 pp. 53-54) calculated that no less than 1,200,000 fur seals had been 

 taken at South Georgia since 1775. The records for South Georgia 



