226 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 



male seal as driven, over one year old and under five years wonld have saved on an 

 average for every year the lives of at least 50,000 to 60,000 holluscliickie, while those 

 spared from the club annually, during the last 20 years have nevertheless perished, 

 or, surviving, were yet rendered worthless for rookerj' service from the immediate 

 or subsequent effect of severe overland driving. 



When I remind you ag^ain, Mr. President, in this connection that 

 owing to the complaint with regard to the size of the skins, and the 

 evidence shows they were liilling during these years every seal that 

 was big enough to kill. 



Tlie President. — Do you mean that according to Mr. Elliott's obser- 

 vation and impression. 



Sir Richard Webster. — In 1890. 



The President. — Altogether — in 1800 if you like — that the driving 

 in the Eussian time for instance, would have been less violent and less 

 rough than it is now. 



Sir Richard Webster. — The evidence is that they have been driven 

 much further and driven much more frequently. I will not neglect that 

 point, Mr. President. They have been driven much further and driven 

 much more frequently, and the same seal has been driven for this long 

 distance more than once — several times during the same year, and it 

 follows from this simple reason the Islands were not M'orse from 1830 to 

 1870 than they were from 1870 to 1890. During the period from 1830 

 to 1870, ex conccssis, there was no pelagic sealing. The Russian average 

 is under 40,000. It is a considerable over statement to speak of it, I 

 believe, as 40,000 over those years, and consequently less driving was 

 required and excluding the consequences of raids and the taking of the 

 pups referred to in the evidence to daj'^, it is not that the same driving 

 had a greater eftect — Mr. Elliott never suggested that for a moment. 

 The fact is, which Mr. Elliott and other persons equally independent 

 and equally observant call attention to, that driving has been carried 

 on in late years in a way that would injure seals to a greater extent 

 than it has been before. 



Now on page 91 you will see the conclusion: 



It seems from the foregoing surveys that at the close of the season of 1890, there 

 are still existing upon the Pribilof rookeries 959,000 seals, old and young and pups 

 of this year's birth, or about one third of the whole number of breeding seals and 

 young recorded as being there in -74, how then can they be so near the danger of 

 extermination, though they arc in danger of it? 



The explanation is as follows : 



1. There is but one breeding bull now upon the rookery ground where there were 

 fifteen in 1872: and the bulls of to-day are nearly all old and many positively 

 impotent. 



2. This decrease of virile male life on the breeding grounds causes the normal 

 ratio of 15 or 20 females to a male as in 1872-74 now to reach the unnatural ratio of 

 50 to even 100 females to an old and enfeebled male. 



3. There is no appreciable number of young males left alive to-day on these ''haul- 

 ing" or non-breeding grounds to take their place on the breeding grounds, which 

 are old enough for that jiurpose, or will be old enough if not disturbed by man, even 

 if left alone for the next five years. 



4. Meanwhile the natural enemies of the fur-seal are just as numerous in the sea 

 and ocean as they ever were — the killer-whale and the shark are feeding iipon them 

 just as they did in 1872-74. 



5. Therefore, we have destroyed by land and by sea the equilibrium which nature 

 had establisiied in 1868 on these rookeries, and Ave must now restore it, or no other 

 result can follow save that of swift extermination. 



6. That condition of 1868, being restored, then that surplus male life can be taken 

 again under better regulations than those of 1870, and the pelagic sealing can be 

 restricted to proper limits, so as to enable the fur-markets of the world to have a 

 regular supply for all time to come. 



The President. — It would be inferred from that that a regular sup- 

 ply would reach a certain number only — whether it is taken by sea or 

 by land. 



