ORAL ARGUMENT OP CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 277 



I read from page 157. At page 102 there is the statement of an 

 Indian, conlirmed by eleven others, and he speaks in the same way: 



Some years there are more than others, and years that the herring are plentiful 

 there are more seals. 



Several of these -fitnesses refer very particularly to the fnr-seals fol- 

 lowing the herrings into the bays. One of them, at page 140, refers to 

 that particularly. He says: 



About Christmas time they come into Barclay Sound on this coast among the 

 islands there, and are seen in great numbers following the run of herring. I have 

 noticed that when the herring is plentiful on the Halibut Banks tlie seals are more 

 numerous than when the feed is scarce. 



Then a man at page 158 speaks of it in the same way: 



Seals are first seen along this coast about Christmas time, and are seen till about 

 the time the berries begin to get ripe — 



I do not know what connection there is between the two. 



but we only hunt them for about three months from the shore, when we go away in 

 the schooners. I have always seen the big ones come first, and towards the middle 

 of the season the smaller ones come. They are always most ]dentiful when the 

 herring are thickest, and I have seen them following the herring right in here, 

 where we now lire — in Ucluelet Harbour — in the night time, and have gone ont and 

 killed them. 



I think there is only one other worth referring to at p. 159, who says: 



Some years they were very plentiful; years the herrings are very plentiful in the 

 Sound and along the coast seals are very jileutifnl, and come in close to land. 



That is all the evidence out of 70 or 80 aflidavits that it is necessary 

 now to call the attention of the Tribunal to ; but I can give you a written 

 list of them all if the Tribunal should desire to have it; I believe they 

 prove what there can be no ground to disjiute, that the seals live 

 largely upon herring and largely upon salmon, that when the herring 

 and salmon are most x)lentiful the seals are most plentiful, and that 

 they follow the schools n\) into the inner waters and into the sounds, 

 wherever the herring go. That I think would be the result of all the 

 testimony. 



The next topic that I desire to touch upon is the question of waste at 

 sea by pelagic sealing. That has an indirect bearing, no doubt, upon 

 this question of regulations. It may be said that if there is undue 

 waste or undue loss by the system of pelagic sealing, the question of 

 regulations would be afiected by that, and would be framed as far as 

 possible in view of it. The United States have asserted very strongly 

 that something like 66 per cent, I think, of the seals that are shot at 

 sea are lost. That we venture to say is utterly and wholly wrong, some 

 twenty times an exaggeration, and I propose to speak of the evidence 

 which we say shows that. Of course there is no question in the world 

 that the pursuit of every wild animal — I do not care what it is or where 

 it is — is accompanied by a certain amount of loss. It is inherent in the 

 very nature of every kind of hunting, every kind of pursuit of wild 

 animals. I do not know any that is free from it. My learned friend, 

 Mr. Coudert, at part 4, page 699, exerted his powers of ridicule and 

 sarcasm upon the sentence in our Commissioners Keport in which they 

 say this : 



The accusation of bntchery laid against those who take the seals on shore cannot 

 be brought, this pelagic method of killing the seal, which is really huntinf/as distin 

 guished from slaughter, in which the animal has what may be described as & fair 

 ^porting chance for its life. 



